Charity and Studies of Entablatures (recto); Frieze of Putti (verso) (Main View)

In the 1300s a woman suckling two children became the standard image of Charity, one of the three Virtues. Here the figure of Charity holds two putti on her lap. One suckles her breast, while the other twists around to look down at her knee. Paolo Farinati used delicate lines, areas of wash, and touches of white bodycolor to build each figure's form. Using brown ink, he outlined Charity and added dark, parallel lines of hatching to create shadows and highlights on her robe. As an afterthought, he made changes to the suckling putto's leg and added his right arm. He may have used the column capitals along the bottom and the frieze of putti on the verso as sources of motifs for the many decorative frescoes that he painted in local villas.