Gallery work
Story and context
A full-size drawing in charcoal and chalk of the Virgin seated on her mother Saint Anne's lap with the infants Christ and John. Never transferred to a painting.
A cartoon is a full-size drawing made to be copied onto a panel. This one was never used for that, and its outlines were never pricked or traced. It may have been kept as a finished work in its own right.
The figures fold into one another so closely that it is hard to see where Anne ends and Mary begins. Anne's raised finger points upward, and her face carries a smile that is calm and knowing. Parts, like the hands and feet at the bottom, are only lightly indicated.
The cartoon is in the National Gallery, London, shown in dim light. In 1987 a man fired a shotgun at it, and it was carefully restored.
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by Mei Lin 