This sheet is so revealing because it documents a part of workshop practice otherwise rarely glimpsed at. Here we have a record of the draughtsman checking his drawing implement’s thickness before embarking on the actual drawing. The stick of red chalk was sharpened by hand – sharpeners as we know them did not yet exist. The tip could be sharpened through the abrasion of the flat sides on the scrap paper to form a point. This explains the repeated long straight strokes and looped lines.
126 168
Creative Commons
Palmette and acanthus ornaments from the baptistery of San Giovanni in Laterano, pen testing marks
Artwork information
Artist
Nicolas François Daniel Lhuillier (c. 1736–1793) or copy after Lhuillier (?), Group 6
Place and date
Rome, between 1755 and 1768 (?)
Dimensions (sheet)
335 x 374 mm
Inventory number
IX 5159-35-32-1v
Keywords
GND terms
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