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Alessandro Magnasco

Ballad Singer at a Shrine of the Virgin

1720/25
Brush and brown gouache and brush and brown wash, with traces of brown chalk, heightened with white chalk, over black chalk, on blue laid paper (discolored to pale brownish-gray)
46.6 × 37 cm (18.3 × 14.6 in)

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In the collection of Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago · as of July 2026

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FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

A Genoese artist who worked mostly in Milan, Alessandro Magnasco epitomizes the transition between 17th- and 18th-century art in northern Italy. Rarely did his highly individual style find such expression as in this drawing, in which reddish-brown chalk wash heightened with white approximates the agitated strokes of the heavily applied impasto in his oil paintings.

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