Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 2 pages
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Source Description
Ercole de' Roberti was one of the leading artists of the Central Italian city of Ferrara during the second half of the 15th century. This painting is based on one of the mourning women in Ercole's famous fresco of the Crucifixion, formerly in a chapel in the cathedral of Bologna and destroyed in 1606 but known through many copies. It is unusual to see detail from a monumental image reproduced as an independent painting and within its own carefully delineated framework. Since the size of the figure in the Walters panel corresponds to that in the fresco, it has been suggested that both were drawn from the same “cartoon,” a preliminary drawing of actual size. The painting demonstrates the artist's ability to vividly depict a state of extreme grief.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
22065
label
Head of a Mourning Woman
core
obj
dtoType
drawing
citationUrl
pageCount
2
Source metadata
id
22065
sourceUrl
contentType
drawing
stage
normalized
title
Head of a Mourning Woman
description
Ercole de' Roberti was one of the leading artists of the Central Italian city of Ferrara during the second half of the 15th century. This painting is based on one of the mourning women in Ercole's famous fresco of the Crucifixion, formerly in a chapel in the cathedral of Bologna and destroyed in 1606 but known through many copies. It is unusual to see detail from a monumental image reproduced as an independent painting and within its own carefully delineated framework. Since the size of the figure in the Walters panel corresponds to that in the fresco, it has been suggested that both were drawn from the same “cartoon,” a preliminary drawing of actual size. The painting demonstrates the artist's ability to vividly depict a state of extreme grief.
provenance
Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome, prior to 1881 [mode of acquisition unknown] [1881 catalogue: no. 104; 1897 catalogue: no. 110, as St. Veronica by Leonardo da Vinci]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
date
15th century (Renaissance)
citationUrl
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
genreSpecific
Painting & Drawing
panel paintings
imageCount
2
pageCount
2
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
52.4
height
39.4
dimensionsRaw
Painted surface H: 20 5/8 x W: 15 1/2 in. (52.4 x 39.4 cm); Panel H: 21 1/8 x W: 16 1/8 x D excluding cradle: 1/4 in. (53.7 x 40.9 x 0.7 cm)
Source extras
med
tempera and oil on wood panel
creator_ids
8094
collection_ids
REN
exhibition_ids
none
Page inventory
seq
1
type
photo
mediaId
eb3e99a06f935677
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
2
type
photo
mediaId
bdf4bc82d2aa8c9a
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no