Two Standing Women, One in Mamluk Dress (recto), Vittore Carpaccio, between 1495 and 1516

Celebrated for his lively religious narrative cycles, carpaccio was a prolific draftsman whose vibrant brushwork, often offset by colored paper, evokes the shimmering textures and tonalities of his paintings. The recto of this double-sided drawing demonstrates the importance of print sources for carpaccio’s middle eastern settings and costumes. It derives from one of erhard reuwich’s woodcut illustrations to bernhard von breydenbach’s peregrinatio in terram sanctam, 1486. The two women reappear, albeit reversed and refashioned, on the far left of the triumph of saint george, a canvas executed by carpaccio and his workshop from about 1501 to 1508 for the confraternity of the dalmatian merchants, also called the “schiavoni”(slavs). The painting, still in situ in venice, is part of a cycle illustrating episodes from the life of the confraternity’s patron saints: jerome, george, and tryphon. Date: between 1495 and 1516. Dimensions: height: 23.2 cm (9.1 in); width: 12.1 cm (4.7 in); frame: height: 51 cm (20 in); width: 40.6 cm (15.9 in); depth: 3.5 cm (1.3 in). Medium: black chalk, brown wash, brush and brown ink, gouache, paper. Collection: Princeton University Art Museum. Carpaccio, Vittore, Two Standing Women, One in Mamluk Dress (recto), 1495-1516