# The Seven Archangels (recto)

- By: Massimo Stanzione (Italian, 1585–1656)
- Date: c. 1620s
- Medium: Pen and brown ink, brown wash, traces of black chalk (recto)
- Classification: Drawing
- Dimensions: Sheet: 9.5 x 35.8 cm (3 3/4 x 14 1/8 in.)
- Culture: Italy
- Credit line: Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/2025.132.a)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/cma/2025.132.a/2025.132.a_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Massimo Stanzione worked in the Spanish-held Kingdom of Naples, where, during the 17th century, painting was characterized by dramatic expression, emphatic naturalism, and intense chiaroscuro derived from the profound influence of Caravaggio (1571-1610). Stanzione, however, was known in the city as one of the main purveyors of a more classical style, a kind of antithesis to the passion and drama of such Neapolitan painters as Jusepe de Ribera. This drawing relates directly to a painting Stanzione made depicting the seven archangels at the Monasterio de la Descalzas Reales in Madrid. The iconography of the seven archangels was a regional focus of devotion in the Neapolitan kingdom, and in Spain, where the cult of the “Seven Angelic Princes” had been promoted by the 16th-century Sicilian friar, Antonio Del Duca (1491-1564).