The Virgin and Saint Joseph with Saint Anthony of Padua Seated in the Heavens Interceding for the Souls in Purgatory, While an Angel Pours Fluid from a Vase onto the Crowd Below (recto and verso)

A prolific draftsman, Pietro Antonio de’ Pietri also made engravings and etchings throughout his career, creating 20 known prints. This double-sided drawing was the preparatory design for his most successful of these.

On this side, Pietri drew his composition solely in pen and ink, the media he used in his early conceptual sketches. In his fully finished drawing on the other side he used brown ink and wash and opaque watercolor to create picturesque effects to be captured by the craftsman who translated the drawing into an etching.