Silverpoint Drawing

One of the most distinct and unique Renaissance drawing techniques is drawing with a metallic stylus, also commonly called silverpoint. In practice, as technical examination of artworks show, a variety of metals were used for drawing except silver (gold, tin, lead etc.) and today we prefer a more inclusive term: metalpoint drawing.

Mtealpoint drawing gets widespread around both Northern and Southern Europe between 14th and 16th centuries. Mannerist and Baroque painters gradually switch to other easier mediums that allow more freedom of gesture and expression, such as chalk and graphite, but over the centuries artists will repeatedly turn back to Silverpoint technique, fascinated by its delicate tone and precision.

Metalpoint drawing originates as a sketching tool. Cennnino Cennini in the second half of 14th century describes the process of sketching with metalpoint on wooden panels that can be primed over and over again to start a new drawing. Paper was still quite expensive in Cennini’s times, so there was a need to exercise on a reusable surface.

A sketchbook of 6 boxwood panels produced in Paris around 1400, presumably by the French illuminator Jacquemart de Hesdin and currently preserved at the Morgan Library & Museum provides us with an insight of silverpoint technique implementation that perfectly corresponds to Cennini’s description.

He continues describing the drawing process:

Cennino describes the metalpoint as “a style of silver, or brass, or anything else, provided the ends be of silver, fairly slender, smooth, and handsome“. But how did the metallic stylus look like back in the Renaissance? We can learn a lot about it from a composition “St. Luke drawing the Virgin” that was quite popular among the early 16th century Netherlandish artists:

Silverpoint strokes can be very light and blended or can be more distinct and the dark tones will be achieved with intersecting hatched lines.

And this way of drawing has been the cause of making engravings with the bulino on copper, as can be seen today in so many prints that go around the world; among which the best made that have ever been seen, that is, the best engraved, were those of Alberto Duro [Albrecht Dürer] of Germany.

Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), I trattati dell’ oreficeria e della scultura di Benvenuto Cellini

In case the drawing surface is prepared with a middle-tone ground, the highlights can be executed with help of white color and a brush.

When paper became more readily available, durable metalpoint technique allowed artists to make sketchbooks that could be transported and used anywhere to make studies of nature, portraits, composition and design elements.

Notice the handy way in which silverpoint styluses were attached to the sketchbooks:

One of the most famous silverpoint sketchbooks is by Albrecht Durer. He filled it with drawings during his trip to the Netherlands in 1520-1521. The book was dismantled and the pages can now be found in multiple collections around the world. Printed reproductions of the pages were assembled and published over the years. Check out Heidelberg University Library where you can get an idea of sketchbook’s original contents.

Finally, extremely light but indelible silverpoint lines were also commonly used as an underdrawing by many 15th century artists: for ink drawings (by Leonardo da Vinci for example) and even for paintings on panel (Jan van Eyck). Sometimes, it worked the other way around: charchoal drawing was made prior to using silverpoint which is much harder to erase (see the above dog drawing by Albrecht Dürer).