Death Carrying a Child

A skeletal figure strides across the sheet, its long cloak swirling around its body in loose pen and brown ink lines. Gray wash models the shadowed drapery, while pale chalk marks suggest the bony limbs and the ground beneath.

Look closer: A faint cast shadow lies beneath the feet, sketched in light wash.

Artist

Stefano della Bella

Date

1610–64

Medium

Pen and brown ink and brush and gray wash, over black chalk

Source

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Size

2381 × 3746 px

Credit (appreciated, not required for public-domain works): The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Peter Palumbo, 1983