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Joseph Greeting his Brothers
Pier Francesco Mola (Italian, 1612-1666)
c. 1656
- Medium
- Pen and brown ink, with brush and brown wash, over red chalk, on buff laid paper, laid down on cream wove card
- Classification
- Drawing and Watercolor
- Dimensions
- 14.1 × 22.5 cm (5 9/16 × 8 7/8 in.)
- Culture
- Italy
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Purchased with funds provided by Anne Searle Bent
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This drawing is among the earliest of 16 preparatory works on paper that Pier Francesco Mola completed for his large-scale fresco in Rome’s Palazzo Quirinale. Unlike Mola’s later studies of the scene and the fresco itself, here Joseph is shown embracing his brother Benjamin. The piece is further distinguished by Mola’s inclusion of architectural and landscape elements in the background, in addition to his use of brown wash, a defining feature that sets the drawing apart from others done in pen or chalk.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
