Study for a Statue of Queen Isabella

Pedro Mena y Medrano

1673–1674

Black chalk, pen and brown-gray ink, with yellow, gray and red wash, Chalk, Pen, Wash

J. Paul Getty Museum

A drawing depicts a robed figure in prayer, standing behind a decorative pedestal adorned with crowns and ornate carvings. The figure is positioned centrally, with a crown resting on a table to the left. Before an altar with a crown on a large cushion, Queen Isabella the Catholic kneels in silent prayer. She kneels atop an ornate bracket with an empty escutcheon and a large crown in the center, flanked by various emblems and trophies including pomegranates, flags, suits of armor, and two nude men. The study gives enough careful detail to allow a stone carver to accurately reproduce this proposed design for a polychrome marble statue of the Spanish queen. The calibrations, numbered one to six along the right side of the sheet, would have allowed another craftsman to judge the scale of the work. The careful shading down the right edge