The Madonna and Child

This highly finished drawing with a statuesque woman holding her child is finely drawn with silvery black chalk in Clovio’s characteristically polished technique. It can be identified with a drawing listed in Giulio Clovio’s collection inventory of 27 December 1577 (1578 in the Roman calendar) where it is described as “[a drawing of] a figurine holding a putto done by Don Giulio from his own invention” (Una figurina con un putto in braccio fatto da D. Giulio et sua inventione; A. Bertolotti, Don Giulio Clovio: principe dei miniatori, notizie e documenti inediti, Modena, 1886, p. 14). As the inventory specifies, the present composition appears to be an original invention of the Croatian master - unlike other copies after Michelangelo listed in his collection. Clovio repeated the pose of this standing figure for his allegory of Faith, featured left in the Theological Virtues (Louvre, Paris, inv. RF 3978) executed in the late 1530s for Cardinal Marino Grimani.