Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione
The Angel Departing from the Family of Tobit (?)c. 1655
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione painted this in about 1655, aged about 36. It is now at the Art Institute of Chicago. More about this work
About this work
A work made of red oil paint on ivory laid paper.
Description from the Art Institute of Chicago.
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione painted this in about 1655, aged about 36. It is now at the Art Institute of Chicago.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
- Laid paper
- Handmade on a mould of close-set wires, which leave fine parallel lines you can see when the sheet is held to the light.
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione
Italian, 1609–1664 · Born in Genoa; died in Mantua.
Castiglione, nicknamed Il Grechetto, trained in his native Genoa and worked in Rome before becoming court painter to the Gonzaga in Mantua. He painted pastoral journeys of the patriarchs crowded with animals and vessels, but his most original work is on paper: he invented the monotype, painting an image on a plate and pressing it onto a sheet, and made bold drawings with a brush loaded with oil paint. His etchings show the influence of Rembrandt.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Art Institute of Chicago has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1966.34
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Type
- Drawing and Watercolor
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
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