The Assumption of the Virgin

Through lively penwork, Pier Francesco Cittadini imparted a sense of movement to the substantial figure of the Virgin and the stable, classical pyramid form of the group. The artist's fertile imagination worked quickly; after doing some sketching with black chalk, he or she applied free-flowing, crisscrossing, tangled threads of ink ranging from the dark squiggles of the Virgin's drapery to the light tracings on the angels' robes below. The fluent washes add drama to the composition.

Cittadina may have based the composition loosely on Reni's painting, The Assumption of the Virgin, in the National Gallery, London, and employed the fluid pen-and-wash style of Reni's drawings from the 1620s and 1630s.