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Follow the loose loops of black chalk in her curls, then find the white chalk on the forehead and nose where the light falls.
Veronese drew this woman’s head in black chalk on pale blue paper, using white chalk for the highlights. Her eyes are lowered and her head tilts gently to one side. The sheet came to the Art Institute in 1962, and the next year it appeared on the cover of the catalogue for an exhibition of the museum’s master drawings in New York.
Black chalk, heightened with white chalk, on pale blue laid paper · 26.5 × 18.6 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · High Renaissance and Mannerism
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Head of a Woman
- Artist
- Paolo Caliari, called Veronese Italian, 1528-1588
- Date
- c. 1575
- Medium
- Black chalk, heightened with white chalk, on pale blue laid paper
- Dimensions
- 26.5 × 18.6 cm (10 7/16 × 7 3/8 in.)
- Credit line
- Margaret Day Blake Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Artist’s life 1528–1588
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.