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| Fra Bartolomeo Temptation of St Anthony ca. 1499 drawing, recto (St Anthony accosted by a harlot-demon) Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Fra Bartolomeo Temptation of St Anthony ca. 1499 drawing, verso (slaughter of the innocents) Royal Collection, Great Brtiain |
The first two images come from the front and the back of the same sheet of paper. Fra Bartolomeo used this sheet to make a pair of splendidly precise preparatory drawings for his splendidly lapidary paintings. That piece of paper was then carefully passed from hand to hand for the next five hundred years until it reached the vaults of the Metropolitan Museum. That any drawings at all have survived from the great remote ages of European art seems somewhat miraculous, and it seems completely unbelievable that they survive in such vast numbers as they actually do.
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| Correggio St Matthew composing his Gospel ca. 1523 drawing Getty |
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| Daniele da Volterra Study for St Peter with Keys ca. 1545 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Francesco Salviati Study for St John the Evangelist 1548-49 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Eustache Le Sueur Study for St Gervasius ca. 1652 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Guercino Study for St Francis & St Louis venerating an image of the Virgin ca. 1618 Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Giovanni Battista Naldini Dead Christ supported by Angels 16th century Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Polidoro da Caravaggio Judith with the head of Holofernes ca, 1525 Prado |
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| Valerio Castello The Agony in the Garden ca. 1645 Getty |
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| Bernardino Gatti (Il Sojaro) Resurrection 16th century Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Italian school Figures for a Resurrection early 16th century Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Bartolomeo Passerotti St Jerome in Penitence ca. 1575 drawing British Museum |
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| Bernardino Luini St Matthew assisted by an Angel early 16th century Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |