Object Information
Antonio Pisano, called Pisanello
Italian, c. 1395-c. 1455
Sketches of the Emperor John VIII Palaeologus, a Monk, and a Scabbard, 1438
Pen and brown ink on ivory laid paper
189 x 265 mm (max.)
Margaret Day Blake Collection, 1961.331R
McCullagh & Giles 250
Prints and Drawings
Not on Display
Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories
Exhibition History
New York, Wildenstein and Company, "Master Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago," October 17-November 30, 1963, n.p., cat. 2, pl. 3.
The Art Institute of Chicago, "A Quarter Century of Collecting: Drawings Given to The Art Institute of Chicago 1944-1970 by Margaret Day Blake," April 28-June 7, 1970, n.p., cat. 1 (ill.).
The Art Institute of Chicago, "Italian Drawings in The Art Institute," 1979, pp. 20-21, cat. 2, by Harold Joachim and Suzanne Folds McCullagh; traveled to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C..
The Art Institute of Chicago, "Great Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago: The Harold Joachim Years 1958-1983," July 24-September 30, 1985, pp. 24-25, cat. 1 (ill.), cat. by Martha Tedeschi.
Paris, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, "Pisanello," May 6-December 8, 1996, p. 206, cat. 113.
The Art Institute of Chicago, "Drawings Rediscovered: Italian Drawings before 1600 in The Art Institute of Chicago," April 10-July 22, 1997.
Galleria di Palazzo Mozzi Bardini, "Islam, Specchio d'Oriente" (2002).
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Byzantium: Faith and Power," March 15–July 4, 2004.
Publication History
Adolfo Venturi, Pisanello (Rome, 1939), p. 37, figs. 32 and 33.
Bernhard Degenhart, Antonio Pisanello (Vienna, 1942), p. 6
Bernhard Degenhart, Pisanello (Turin, 1945), pp. 44 and 65.
Raffaello Brenzoni, Pisanello (Florence, 1952), pp. 210 and 216, pl. 84.
Bernhard Degenhart, "Di una publicazione su Pisanello e di altri fatti (I)," Arte Veneta 7 (1953), p. 182.
Maria Fossi Todorow, "The Exhibition 'Da Altichiero a Pisanello' in Verona," The Burlington Magazine 101 (1959), p. 14.
Art Quarterly 24 (Autumn, 1961), p. 304 (ill.).
"La Chronique des Arts," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, supplement 59 (February 1962), p. 23, nos. 94 and 95.
John Maxon, Master Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1963).
James A. Fasanelli, "Some Notes on Pisanello and the Council of Florence," Master Drawings 3 (1965), pp. 36-47, pl. 30 and 31.
Maria Fossi Todorow, I Disegni del Pisanello (Florence, 1966), pp. 30-31, 81, no. 58, pl. 69 and 71 (ill.).
George Francis Hill and Graham Pollard, Renaissance Medals from the Samuela H. Kress Collection at the National Gallery of Art (London, 1967), p. 97, fig. 4 and 5.
Jacob Bean, "Maria Fossi Todorow, I Disegni del Pisanello e della sua cerchia," The Burlington Magazine 110 (1968), p. 156.
Graham Pollard, "Roberto Weiss, Pisanello's Medallion of the Emperor John VIII Palaeologus," Numismatic Chronicle 9 (1969), pp. 356-357.
Maria Fossi Todorow, L'Italia dalle origini a Pisanello (1970), p. 92, fig. 39.
John Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago (London, 1970), p. 140 (ill.).
Gian Alberto Dell'Acqua and Renzo Chiarelli, L'Opera completa del Pisanello (Milan, 1972), p. 105, nos. 166-167 (ill.).
Giovanni Paccagnini, Pisanello (London, 1973), pp. 156 and 164.
Edith Pogány-Balás, "Problems of Mantegna's Destroyed Fresco in Rome, Representing the Baptism of Christ," Acta Historiae Artium Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 18 (1972), p. 124.
Marcell Restle, "Ein Porträt Johannes Palaiologos auf dem Sinai," in Festschrift Luitpold Dussler (1972), pp. 131 and 136.
Vladmimir Juren, "À propos de la médaille de Jean VIII Paléologue par Pisanello," Revue numismatique 15 (1973), p. 222.
Michael Vickers, "Some Prepatory Drawings for Pisanello's Medallion of John VIII Palaeologus" Art Bulletin 60 (1973), pp. 417-424, figs. 7 and 8.
Harold Joachim, Italian Drawings of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries (Chicago, 1979), p. 11, nos. 1A1-1A2.
Giovanna de Lorenzi, Medaglie di Pisanello e della sua cerchia (Florence 1983), p. 10.
Joanna Woods-Marsden, The Gonzaga of Mantua and Pisanello's Arthurian Frescoes (Princeton, 1988), pp. 33, 40, 45, and 198.
Francis Ames-Lewis, "Il disegno nella practica di bottega del quattrocentro," in La pittura nel Veneto: Il Quattrocentro, 2 vols. (Milan, 1990), p. 684.
Stephen K. Scher, The Currency of Fame: Portrait Medals of the Renaissance (Washington, D.C., 1994), pp. 43, 46, and 376.
Bernhard Degenhart and Annegritt Schmitt, Pisanello und Bona da Ferrara (Munich, 1995), pp. 207 and 282.
Robert Munman, in Burton L. Dunbar and Edward J. Olszewski, Drawings in Midwestern Collections I (Columbia, Mo., 1996), pp. 95-101, no. 19 (ill.).
Suzanne Folds McCullagh and Laura M. Giles, Italian Drawings before 1600 in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection (Chicago, 1997), pp. 192-193, no. 250 (ill.).
Treasures from The Art Institute of Chicago, selected by James N. Wood, with commentaries by Debra N. Mancoff (Chicago, 2000), p. 90 (ill. verso).
Luke Syson, Pisanello: Painter to the Renaissance Court (London, 2001).
Larry J. Feinberg, Suzanne Folds McCullagh, Christina M. Nielsen, “Western Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic World,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 30:2 (2004), p. 27, no. 10 (ill.).
Jeff Fleischer, "Drawing a Crowd," Chicago Magazine (November 2007), p. 44, fig. 4.
Ownership History
Private collection, Rome, by 1939 [Venturi 1939]. Sold by Wildenstein and Company, New York, to the Art Institute, 1961.