28 BERNARDO STROZZI Italian, 1581­1644 Saint Francis Black and white chalk 38.9 x 25.9 cm (15 5/16 x 10 3/16 in.) Cat. III,no.47;91.GB.40 In an age so accustomed to photography as well as to all kinds of sophisticated black­and­white and color reproductions, it is hard to imagine life without the camera. But for the majority of artists, right up until the middle of the nineteenth century, the most convenient way of preserving the appearance of a given object was to copy it, very often by making a drawing on paper. Thus, the French painter Claude Lorrain (see no. 70) made an entire album of drawn records of his own pictures, the Liber veritatis (Book of truth), now in the British Museum, partly to keep track of the ownership of his paintings and partly to combat the efforts of forgers mimicking his designs. Although usually less methodical in this respect than Claude, other artists kept sketchbooks of ricordi (literally, records, or copies) that allowed them to remind themselves of a picture or some detail in such a picture that had long since been dispatched. Strozzi may have made this drawing as a record of his Saint Francis in Adoration before the Crucifix, 1618—20 (versions in Genoa, Palazzo Rosso, and Tulsa, Philbrook Museum of Art). The fact that the drawing corresponds so exactly to the painted head and is finished in such detail, with the lights and darks noted with utmost care, suggests that Strozzi had his own picture in front of him when making this sketch. ITALIAN SCHOOL 37