Paolo Veronese - Saint Roch in Glory, 1564

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This work has an overall sepia color from the use of light washes of diluted brown ink. It shows a central, open circle composition of a man, a pair of angels, a pair of female figures, and a dove. The central figure is a man with outstretched arms and his back to the viewer. He is borne upward by a pair of winged angels through a cloud filled sky toward a dove at the top center of the drawing. The dove has open wings and is radiating a semi-circle of light colored rays. One of the angels faces the viewer and uses his head to push on the ascending man’s back as his legs kick out and his clothing billows in the wind. He offers his long staff to a large female figure on his right who reaches toward the rays of celestial light emanating around the dove. Fluffy clouds surround and support her. She wears a flowing classical gown and a billowing shawl. She looks down toward the ascending man and the angel, whose outstretched arm grasps the other angel to his left. That angel has his back to the viewer. We see the extended wings as he flies under the man and allows the man to use his body as a seat. Another toga clad female figure on the left side of the man is positioned in the clouds above the ascending man. He grasps her outstretched right arm. Her left arm reaches for a folded cloth that is being saturated with a substance coming from a jug suspended in the light just under the dove. In the lower center of the drawing there is a torso of a woman who is looking down at and embracing a baby and a child in an earthly landscape with plant forms. Dozens of small babies’ heads are barely discernible in the clouds. 

Paolo Veronese (Verona, 1528 - 1588, Venice)

Saint Roch in Glory, 1564

Pen and brown ink and wash, with white gouache, over traces of graphite ( ? ) on blue laid paper, mounted to cream wove paper , 26.7 x 27.8 cm (10 1/2 x 10 15/16 in.)

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Isabella Stewart Gardner kept meticulous records of many of her acquisitions. In keeping with this legacy, object information is continually being reviewed, updated, and enriched in order to give greater access to the collection.