Pesquisando por: "Preparatory decor for the" - Fotoarena - Agência de fotojornalismo

alb3658563 Study for The Allegory of Spring. Artist: Federico Zuccaro (Zuccari) (Italian, Sant'Angelo in Vado 1540/42-1609 Ancona). Dimensions: sheet: 8 11/16 x 13 3/4 in. (22 x 35 cm). Date: 1579.Related to the frescoed ceiling of Federico's home in Florence ('Casa Zuccari'), this newly discovered drawing presents the season of Spring as a combat between Chastity and Love. In the central fountain, a virgin is seated beside a unicorn who purifies the fountain with his horn. At left, the chaste nymphs of the huntress Diana are seen bathing, while at right other nymphs dance around a statue of Flora and are attacked by cupids' arrows. All these features appear in the fresco, but the drawing contains additional figures-nymphs of Diana who break one cupid's bow and bind another, as well as cupids who fight with each other. The more complicated iconography of the drawing, together with its rectangular format-the fresco fields are irregularly shaped-and elaborate border, suggest that Federico may have planned to publicize this private project through an engraving.This drawing by Federico Zuccaro, a study for the Allegory of Spring, of 1577-79, was preparatory for the fresco-cycle in the ground floor of his house in Florence: this "Casa Zuccaro" at Via del Mandorlo constituted an extensive rebuilding of what had been the house of Andrea del Sarto, a property which had also belonged to the Sangallo Family. The monumental Metropolitan sheet by Federico Zuccaro (correctly identified before the time of its acquisition) exhibits an extensive underdrawing in black chalk, with numerous pentimenti, may illustrate one of the earliest ideas for the project since the design may have initially been intended for a wall, instead of a 'riquadro' on a vault or ceiling as in the final fresco, and since the composition is also much more complex (nearly confusing in its prolixity of elements), with respect to the final fresco and the other surviving preparatory drawings (in Rome, Lisboa, and Florence). (Carmen C. Bambach). Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3667597 The Martyrdom of Saint Cecilia (Cartoon for a Fresco). Artist: Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri) (Italian, Bologna 1581-1641 Naples). Dimensions: Irregular oval: 67 13/16 × 59 9/16 in. (172.2 × 151.3 cm). Date: 1612-14.This monumental, exquisitely rendered composition is among the most significant extant cartoons (full-scale drawings) by Domenichino. It was a preparatory design for the central portion of his fresco of the Martyrdom of Saint Cecilia, painted on the left wall of the Polet chapel at San Luigi dei Francesi, the French church of Rome. Domenichino received the contract for the frescoes on February 16, 1612, from Pierre Polet (died in Rome in 1613), a prelate from the diocese of Noyon who was dedicated to the cult of Saint Cecilia. In 1599, he had attended the exhumation of her relics from a casket underneath the high altar of her titular church at Santa Cecilia in Trastevere in Rome. According to Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend, Cecilia (2nd or 3rd century A.D., Rome), a virtuous virgin matron was to be burned in a boiling bath, "but she remained in the bath as in a cool place, nor felt so much as a drop of sweat." She then suffered three decapitating blows of the sword that did not sever her head, and since a fourth blow was prohibited by Roman law, she lived on for three more days, during which she gave all her possessions to the poor. On her last day, Saint Cecilia entrusted to Pope Urban all the Christians that she had converted and beckoned him to consecrate her house as a church. Domenichino's final work alludes to this part of the story, and, here, the moribund Cecilia is seen at center, attended by a maid servant, a bearded man, and a child at right. Domenichino holds a pivotal place in the development of Baroque Classicism in Rome, and his frescoes in the Polet chapel at San Luigi dei Francesi are amongst the principal examples of that style. Since this is the most important Italian Baroque drawing in the United States, the following, more indepth observations may be added. This is the only large cartoon (full-scale drawing) for a major work by an important Renaissance or Baroque artist in this country. Two cartoon fragments by Domenichino, for the left and right sides of the composition of the Martyrdom of Saint Cecilia, are preserved in the Musée du Louvre, Département des arts graphiques inv. nos. 9080 and 9081 (Paris). They too have pricked outlines for the transfer of the design and are drawn in a similar technique and medium on a surface comprised of multiple sheets of paper joined together. The drawing surface of the Metropolitan Museum's cartoon is comprised of fourteen large sheets of paper, which was originally of a blue-gray hue like many other drawings of this time. As is typical of Renaissance and Baroque artistic practice, the sheets of paper of the cartoon were glued together (probably with flour paste), with overlapping seams. This was done in the artist's studio, by the artist himself or by a studio assistant. Domenichino's cartoon is drawn very carefully in charcoal with white chalk hightlighting, but the handling is very broad in many passages and many pentimenti are evident. The strokes of charcoal in important passages of the design are rubbed together to create effects of sfumato, but many other passages of parallel hatching and outlines were left untouched by the artist. The technique of drawing cartoons is often very bold, because such drawings are meant to be seen from a far viewing distance. The outlines of the cartoon were pricked for the transfer of the design, but in this case this was probably to transfer the design to a "substitute cartoon," which was the object actually used on the moist fresco surface itself. This technique of the "substitute cartoon" saved the valuable carefully executed drawing from destruction in the working process. Once Domenichino's beautifully drawn cartoon served its purpose in the artist's studio, it was preserved as a collector's item: it was cut in the shape of an oval, lined with canvas, and was mounted on a stretcher like a picture for display before 1705 or 1706. The cartoon's frame dates to the eighteenth century. Domenichino has focused attention on the drama of Saint Cecilia's suffering, her faith and her spirituality at the moment of death. Her idealized beauty, expression, and corporeal grace of pose are meant to convey the transcendental beauty of her Christian virtue. The viewer's reaction to this scene of the saint's noble suffering and unwavering faith was critically important to the artist's thinking in developing the composition. The figures at right participate as witnesses to the scene. The gestures of these secondary figures at right play out the reactions of empathy and contemplation the artist expected from the viewers seeing the composition: the devout practioners attending church.There are slightly differing accounts on the martyrdom of Saint Cecilia, who was already accepted into the hagiographic canon by the fifth century A.D. The main source on her life, Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend (thirteenth century), states that she was to be burned in a boiling bath, "but she remained in the bath as in a cool place, nor felt so much as a drop of sweat." The virtuous virgin matron then suffered three decapitating blows of the sword that did not sever her head, and since a fourth blow was prohibited by law, she lived on for three more days, during which she gave all her possessions to the poor (the mainscene fresoed on the opposite wall of the Polet chapel). On her last day, Saint Cecilia entrusted to Pope Urban all the Christians that she had converted and beckoned him to consecrate her house as a church. Domenichino's composition of the saint's martyrdom includes the pope and the converts in an atemporal arrangement that also alludes to the consecration of her house. Domenichino's biographers, Giovanni Pietro Bellori (1672) and Giambattista Passeri (1772) also describe the particulars of Saint Cecilia's martyrdom.Domenichino represented the agonizing Saint Cecilia within the imposing interior of a Roman bath (presumably the caldarium that was part of her house),where the prefect Almachius had unsuccessfully attempted to have her martyred. The contract between patron and artist governing the commission of this fresco, dated February 16,1612, mentions this setting.In 1599, the patron commissioning the fresco, Pierre Polet had apparently attended the exhumation of the saint's relics from a casket underneath the high altar of the basilica of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, and this event was recorded. The ceremony of recognition of the relics was officiated by the titular of the basilica, Cardinal Paolo Sfondrati, on October, 19, 1599, and was witnessed by the great debunker of saints of the Counter-Reformation movement, Cesare Baronio, who pronounced the relics authentic.The cartoons by Domenichino for the two main frescoed scenes in the Polet chapel at San Luigi dei Francesi are also cited in the 1612 contract between the patron and the artist. According to the document, the cartoons were to be retained by the priest Don Mass. Bruni, the prior of the church of San Luigi dei Francesi. The cartoons for the sides of the fresco of the Martyrdom of Saint Cecilia (the fragments today in the Louvre) passed to the collection of the painter Charles Le Brun, then to the French royal collections and the Louvre.The cartoons by Domenichino were from the beginning regarded as the key drawings for the Polet Chapel, and the central portion of the composition with the Martyrdom of Saint Cecilia (i.e., the work today at the Met) was probably especially prized. This may well explain why this is the only major surviving cartoon for the project which Charles Le Brun was unable to acquire when he visited Rome after Domenichino's death. It is clear from a reading of the contract of February 16, 1612, between Domenichino and his patron, that the first owner of the proposed cartoon section for the Martyrdom of Saint Cecilia must have been the priest - possibly the prior of San Luigi dei Francesi -- Don Mass. Bruni, who must have also owned the Louvre cartoon fragments for the composition, the ones which Charles Le Brun obtained during his Roman sojourn in 1642-48. The 1664 inventory of the possessions of Francesco Raspantino, Domenichino's pupil in Naples and artistic heir, lists three preparatory cartoon fragments for the Polet chapel decoration by his master: the "Marriage of Saint Cecilia to Valerian," the "Apotheosis of Saint Cecilia," and "Saint Cecilia Refusing to Sacrifice to the Idols." Curiously, none of these are for parts of the fresco decoration that were deemed significant in the 1612 contract. Finally, Charles Le Brun was apparently unable to procure the central and main portion of the composition of the "Martyrdom of Saint Cecilia," for he had it copied in full scale in a large drawing that is in the Musée du Louvre. It may (or may not) be the cartoon referred to in a Chigi inventory of 1705/6. (Carmen C. Bambach, September 2015). Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3650115 Saint Sebastian. Artist: Alessandro Vittoria (Alessandro Vittoria di Vigilio della Volpa) (Italian, 1525-1608). Culture: Italian, Venice. Dimensions: Overall (confirmed): 21 3/8 × 6 3/8 × 6 3/8 in. (54.3 × 16.2 × 16.2 cm). Date: 1566.The preeminent Venetian sculptor of the late sixteenth century, Alessandro Vittoria was highly productive in diverse media and types of work. He is most closely identified with portrait busts, which collectively create a sober image of Veneto society, but he also produced excellent stucco decorations for palaces and stone statues for churches. In addition, he issued a distinguished series of bronze statuettes -- including thirteen known signed examples -- about half of which have religious subjects, such as Saint John Baptist (formerly in the Venetian church of San Francesco della Vigna), and half mythological ones, such as Mercury (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles).[1] Saint Sebastian is among the most successful of these bronze statuettes and was a favorite of the artist, who kept it and a variant in his house and proudly mentioned it in various wills. The composition depends on a lifesize work in Istrian stone of 1563 - 64 commissioned from Vittoria by the Montefeltro family for the altar in San Francesco della Vigna.[2] The dynamic, twisting composition is indebted to various works Vittoria admired, including Michelangelo's Dying Slave (Musée du Louvre, Paris) for the overall pose and such Hellenistic sculptures as the Dying Alexander (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence) for the emotive face and flowing hair.[3] Venetian painters from Carpaccio to Vittoria's contemporary Tintoretto inflected the style of the saint's elongated figure.[4] In the Metropolitan's bronze, Vittoria accentuated the length of the body and exaggerated its torsion. As the viewer moves around the sculpture, the smooth surfaces of the metal catch the light, emphasizing the fluid modeling of the male body and the precision of such details as locks of hair and tree bark.[5] Three extant bronze variants of Saint Sebastian -- this one; another, unfinished, in a private collection; and a third, draped and unsigned, in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art -- have proved difficult to disentangle historically, despite the existence of some documentation. Vittoria's fifth will, dated May 1584, mentions two castings of Saint Sebastian, one signed and one unsigned.[6] We know that Vittoria paid Andrea d'Alessandri (Andrea Bresciano) for having cast a Saint Sebastian on December 14, 1566, and that on May 16, 1575, he paid Orazio, a son-in-law of the late Andrea d'Alessandri, for casting another figure of the saint.[7] Before the appearance in 1998 of the bronze now in a private collection, it was generally assumed that the Metropolitan's and the Los Angeles versions were the two cited in Vittoria's 1584 testament. [8] Recently, however, scholars have agreed that the slack modeling and thin cast of the Los Angeles version indicate that it is a later after cast.[9] The Vittoria specialist Manfred Leithe-Jasper has proposed that the Metropolitan's version is the first cast and that the second cast is, in fact, the unfinished version in a private collection, since X-ray examination has shown them to be nearly identical technically.[10] Leithe-Jasper further noted that the crisply engraved signature on the Metropolitan's bronze -- "Alexander.Victor.T.F." -- reflects the artist's early practice, continued into the 1560s, of using the letter T to refer to his birthplace, the city of Trent (ancient Tridentum). The signature "Alexander.Victoria.F." on the bronze now in a private collection is consistent with the artist's later practice; moreover, the lettering is more casually engraved, suggesting that the work was not signed at the time of casting (and thus was described as unsigned in Vittoria's will) but added later.There are no arrows to identify the protomartyr Sebastian either in the stone version at San Francesco della Vigna or in the bronze versions; only the figure's troubled expression and contorted limbs reveal his torment. Clear signs of torture being absent, it is the beautiful body that is the artist's focus. Indeed, the artist himself seems to have been ambivalent about the subject: in one of his wills Vittoria states that the bronze statuette of Sebastian could also be interpreted as a Marsyas.[11] The importance of the statuette to Vittoria and the resounding success of his brilliant Mannerist figura serpentinata are suggested in a number of paintings. Paolo Veronese's Alessandro Vittoria shows the sculptor leaning against a carpeted table and cradling what is probably a plaster of one of the prototypes of Saint Sebastian.[12] Across the table lies a fragmentary ancient marble torso. Its rippling muscles are an obvious source for Vittoria's work, but the artist seems confident that the Renaissance sculpture will surpass its classical model in the complexity of its pose. Plaster casts taken from preparatory models or finished bronzes surely circulated among artists and collectors. They appear in paintings as disparate as Bergamesque painter Evaristo Baschenis's Musical Instruments and a Statuette (Galleria dell'Accademia Carrara, Bergamo) and the Dutchman Jan Steen's The Drawing Lesson (J. Paul Getty Museum), testifying to the esteem in which seventeenth-century artists continued to hold this marvelous composition.[13][Ian Wardropper. European Sculpture, 1400-1900, In the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2011, no. 25, pp. 80-83.]Footnotes: [1] For the thirteen signed bronzes, see Manfred Leithe-Jasper. "Alessandro Vittorio bronzista." In "La bellissima maniera" 1999, pp. 325-29, p. 325.[2] For the history of this commission and its publication, see Victoria Avery. "St. Sebastian; Alessandro Vittoria (ca. 1528-1608)." In The Encyclopedia of Sculpture, edited by Antonia Boström, vol. 3, pp. 1738-40. New York, 2004.[3] Many scholars, from Wilhelm R. Valentiner (1942) to Manfred Leithe-Jasper (in "La bellissima maniera": Alessandro Vittoria e la scultura veneta del Cinquecento. Exh. cat. edited by Andrea Bacchi, Lia Camerlengo, and Manfred Leithe-Jasper. Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trent; 1999. Trent, 1999, p. 342) have noted that the Dying Slave and the Dying Alexander served as models for Saint Sebastian. [4] Leithe-Jasper (in Genius of Venice, 1500-1600. Exh. cat. edited by Jane Martineau and Charles Hope. Royal Academy of Arts, London; 1983-84. London, 1983, p. 388, no. s37) is one of the scholars who have mentioned the influence of these painters on the present work.[5] Richard E. Stone. "Organic Patinas on Small Bronzes of the Italian Renaissance." Metropolitan Museum Journal 45 (2010), pp. 107-23, p. 109, emphasizes how successfully the North Italian type of black patina enhances the statuette's lustrous skin.[6] Giuseppe Gerola. "Nuovi documenti veneziani su Alessandro Vittoria." Atti del Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti 84, pt. 2 (1924-25), pp. 339-59, p. 353. [7] The documents of 1566 and 1575 were first cited in Riccardo Predelli. Le memorie e le carte di Alessandro Vittoria. Trent, 1908, pp. 132, 155 - 56. Victoria J. Avery (1999, p. 64, doc. no. 91, p. 85, doc. no. 91) has reviewed both of these documents thoroughly.[8] Leithe-Jasper (in Genius of Venice 1983, p. 388, no. s37) took this view. The unfinished bronze appeared in a sale at Christie's, London, July 7, 1998, no. 109.[9] Already in 1987, before the bronze in a private collection was discovered, Scott Schaefer and Peter Fusco doubted that the Los Angeles County Museum's bronze (M.51.12; H. 21 ¾ in. [55.2 cm]) was a contemporary cast, citing it as possibly eighteenth century; see Scott Schaefer and Peter Fusco. European Painting and Sculpture in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. Los Angeles, 1987, p. 170.[10] Leithe-Jasper in "La bellissima maniera" 1999, pp. 342 - 45; Leithe-Jasper 1999.[11] This observation is in the third will, dated November 7, 1570: "statua di bronzo, quale può servire raconciandola, overo san Sebastiano, over Marsia, facendoli la ferita soto la tetta sinistra o nel mezo della tetta" (bronze statuette [which] can be turned into a Saint Sebastian or a Marsyas by adding a wound below the left breast or in the center of it); Gerola 1924 - 25, pp. 348 - 49.[12] The most recent discussion of Veronese's portrait of Vittoria is in Jérémie Koering. "L'Art en personne(s)." In Titien, Tintoret, Véronèse: Rivalités à Venise, pp. 178-99. Exh. cat. edited by Vincent Dieulevin and Jean Habert with Arturo Galansino. Musée du Louvre, Paris, 2009-10. Paris, 2009, pp. 181, 186, and pp. 182 - 83, no. 16.[13] See Leo Steinberg. "Steen's Female Gaze and Other Ironies." Artibus et Historiae, no. 22 (1990), pp. 107-28. Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3611664 Raymond Diocrès Speaking During His Funeral (from the Life of Saint Bruno of Cologne). Artist: Daniele Crespi (Italian, Busto Arsizio 1597/1600-1630 Milan). Dimensions: 12 3/16 x 8 1/4 in. (31 x 21 cm). Date: 1628-29.Daniele Crespi, who lived to be barely thirty-three years old and who nevertheless is counted among the leading Italian Baroque painters, hailed from the region of Lombardy. He was active mainly in Milan. His artistic vocabulary seems dazzling for its energy of figural pose, expressive gesture, and dramatic light. This virtuoso drawing relates to a very well known project of the artist's mature career, and the treatment of the subject matter is highly expressive. This drawing was preparatory for the 'Resurrection of Raymond Diocrés', a scene frescoed around 1628-29 by Daniele Crespi on the west nave of the Carthusian Monastery - or Certosa - in Garegnano, near Milan. The composition, randered in a dramatic chiaroscuro, portrays the blessed Diocrés rising from the bier before a crowd of onlookers who gesticulate wildly with astonishment. The figure of the deceased man on the bier is placed along a diagonal in the pictorial space, and the funeral scene unfolds within the interior of a church. The bier is inscribed by the artist in pen and the same brown ink as in the drawing with notes on the materials, "brocato nero / che sia di carta atacato al tapeto." Following these instructions, the blessed Diocrés was clothed with a black brocade drapery in the fresco. In preparing the complex and crowded scene in Garegnano, which also happened to be the last commission before his death, Crespi prepared several other drawings: a brief sketch for the sole figure of Raymond Diocrés (Civico Gabinetto dei Disegni, Milan, inv. A 1983), and two larger compositional sketches in Milan (Biblioteca Ambrosiana, inv. Cod. F 271, inf. n. 103) and in a private collection in Paris. Considering its difference from the final fresco, the Met drawing must be considered an early, tentative compositional study for the whole scene, which was later corrected on the sheets now in Milan and Paris. The collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art lists an additional drawing done by Crespi for the Certosa in Garegnano (inv. 1978.133), a recently acquired repertory study of hands which was used by Crespi for the same decorative cycle (2015.15a,b), and two sketches for his earlier commission in the Certosa of Pavia (inv. nos. 80.3.217 and 1981.400). (Furio Rinaldi, 2015). Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3675253 Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple (below), Abraham about to Sacrifice Isaac (above). Artist: Perino del Vaga (Pietro Buonaccorsi) (Italian, Florence 1501-1547 Rome). Dimensions: 8 7/8 x 10 1/16in. (22.6 x 25.5cm). Date: 1520.One of the first independent projects Perino del Vaga undertook after the death of his master Raphael in 1520 was the decoration in fresco of the Pucci chapel in the Roman Church of Trinità dei Monti for the powerful Florentine cardinal Lorenzo Pucci (1458-1531). In the triangular-shaped compartments of the High Gothic-style vault, a challenging and awkward pictorial field, particularly for multifigured narrative compositions, the artist executed scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary, to whom the chapel was dedicated. A preparatory study for one of the frescoes, this confident drawing--characterized by a fluid handling of different media, and squared for enlargement in order to transfer the design to the vault--attests to Perino's prodigious gifts as a draftsman, for which he was acclaimed from the very beginning of his career. Here, as in the other scenes in the Pucci Chapel, the Marian subject matter is paired with an Old Testament narrative, in this case, the Sacrifice of Isaac, which theologians interpreted as a prefiguration of the sacrifice of Christ.The decoration in fresco of the Pucci chapel was carried out by Perino in 1523, but left unfinished in 1527 after the dramatic events of the Sack of Rome. The cycle was later completed by the brothers Taddeo (1562-66) and Federico Zuccari (from 1566). Together with a second preparatory sheet for the Pucci chapel now in the Albertina, Vienna ('Joachim and Anne Meeting at the Golden Gate,' inv. 24983, 23.4 x 25.6 cm) the drawing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is listed in the 1601 post-mortem inventory of the Roman collector Antonio Tronsarelli as follows: "A60. Quando la mad.[on]na sale al tempio pur de chiaro oscuro Pierino" (for this inventory and full bibliography see here 'References'). Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3644475 Virtue Crowned by Honor. Artist: Carlo Maratti (Italian, Camerano 1625-1713 Rome). Dimensions: 5 7/8 x 5 1/4in. (14.9 x 13.3cm). Date: 1670-76.During the pontificate of Clement X Altieri (r. 1670-76), his family palace on the Piazza del Gesù in Rome was enlarged and redecorated. Carlo Maratti, a gifted draftsman and the leading baroque painter in Rome, was commissioned to paint the main room between 1674 and 1677, but only the fresco that fills the long, narrow central section of the vault of Palazzo Altieri was executed. The undecorated portions of the vault were to contain allegorical figures representing Religion, Faith, Divine Wisdom, and Evangelical Truth. Together with three other sheets in the Metropolitan Museum (inv. nos. 64.295.1, 66.137 and 66.53.3) the present study relates to the Altieri decoration and constitutes a preliminary sketch by Maratti for an Allegorical Virtue crowned by Honor. Maratti executed the figure on blue paper with a quick sketch in pen and ink, highlighted with white gouache, and developed this dynamic group on a second, highly-finished drawing in red chalk, also in the Museum's collection (inv. 64.295.1). In the present drawing Virtue wears the lion's skin over her head, and Honor holds a cornucopia, as the text dictates. These features are missing in the second study, but there, lightly indicated in chalk at the bottom of the sheet, appears the "trifauce cane." Other studies for Virtue Crowned by Honor are in the Albertina in Vienna, the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, and the Academia de San Fernando, Madrid.According to the artist's biographer, Giovanni Pietro Bellori (1613-1696) Maratta executed the painted decoration for the spandrels of the Palazzo Altieri but, in reality, the artist never completed more than the central panel of the ceiling of the chamber, which represents an Allegory of Clemency (in honor of his patron Clement X). Bellori describes the intended scheme, saying that the spandrels at one end of the room were to contain Allegories of Religion and Faith, while at the other end, over the entrance door were to be an Allegory of Divine Wisdom and an Allegory of Evangelical Truth. Bellori describes the side walls of the room in the following words: "fra le tre laterali a destra, Roma Sacra, il Tempo, la Pace, la Virtù, l'onore, e ne tre altri intermezzi opposti le quattro parti del Mondo Europa, Asia, Africa, ed America divote alla Chiesa..."(trans.: "in the three laterals in the right Sacred Rome, Time, Peace, Virtue, Honor, and in the three spaces on the opposite wall the four parts of the world Europe, Asia, Africa and America all honoring the Church..."). For other preparatory studies for the decoration of the Great Hall of the Palazzo Altieri in the Metropolitan Museum of Art see inv. nos. 64.295.1 (Virtue crowned by Honor), 66.53.3 (Allegory of Peace), 66.137 (Allegory of Divine Wisdom or Divina Sapienza), 2008.334.1 (Study of a Putto Seated on a Corbel in a Shell Niche), and 65.206 (Plan for a Ceiling and Nude Figures).(F.R.). Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3655726 Study for the Allegory of San Gimignano and Colle Val d'Elsa. Artist: Jacopo Zucchi (Italian, Florence ca. 1540-1596 Rome). Dimensions: 8 7/16 x 8 7/16 in. (21.5 x 21.4 cm). Date: 1563.This powerfully rendered composition portrays an allegory of the Tuscan towns of San Gimignano and Colle Val d'Elsa, which came under Florentine rule in 1354 and 1333 respectively. The drawing is connected with a precisely documented, historically significant painting, and this helps in deciphering the otherwise abstruse iconography. A muscular old river god alluding to the Elsa River sits in the foreground, flanked by two emblematic male figures holding the banners of the two towns. At left the banner would eventually depict the lion of San Gimignano, and at right the banner would eventually depict the horse's head of Colle. The distant background includes roving views of the fortified towns, and in the final work the town furthest in the distance would include the numerous tall towers that would characterize it as San Gimignano. As can be deduced from the traces of proportional squaring, the carefully drawn sheet served as a demonstration drawing (modello), the penultimate step in the process of preliminary design of the painting before it was enlarged to full scale. The drawing technique, with firm rounded outlines and stark contrasts of white highlights and brown-gray wash shadows, is typical of the artist. This superb drawing by Jacopo Zucchi was preparatory for a ceiling compartment in the "Sala dei Cinquecento" (Palazzo Vecchio, Florence), and forms part of a monumental decorative scheme in fresco and oil painting executed by Giorgio Vasari and his workshop in 1563. It is an attractive exhibition piece, because of its dramatic composition and vigorous draftsmanship. This is a fairly early work by Zucchi, strongly influenced by Giorgio Vasari, who employed him in for the painting of the ceiling panels and wall frescoes in the "Sala dei Cinquecento." The painting cycle in the "Sala" grandly celebrated the reign of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. (Carmen C. Bambach, 2009). Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3612547 Seated Allegorical Figure of Divine Wisdom. Artist: Carlo Maratti (Italian, Camerano 1625-1713 Rome). Dimensions: 17-5/8 x 14-7/16 in. (44.7 x 36.7 cm). Date: 1674-77.During the pontificate of Clement X Altieri (1670-1676), his family palace on the Piazza del Gesù in Rome was enlarged and redecorated. Carlo Maratti was commissioned to paint the main room between 1674 and 1677, but only the fresco that fills the long, narrow central section of the vault was executed. The undecorated portions of the vault were to contain allegorical figures representing Religion, Faith, Divine Wisdom, and Evangelical Truth. A document for this never-completed project, this sheet, boldly executed in red chalk, is a preparatory study for the Allegory of Divine Wisdom.The undecorated portions of the vault are divided by real or fictively painted windows. According to Maratti's biographer Giovan Pietro Bellori (1613-1696), the four sections of the vaulting at the opposite ends of the Hall were to contain allegorical figures representing Religion, Faith, Divine Wisdom, and Evangelical Truth, respectively. The six spandrels between the windows on the two long sides of the room - three to a side - were to contain representations of Rome with the River Tiber, Peace, Heroic Virtue, Europe, Africa, and Asia with America.In recent years some twenty-two drawings in collections here and abroad have been identified as preparatory studies by Maratti for the decoration of these spandrels; the most recent and complete listing of the drawings is supplied by Jennifer Montagu. Montagu has also discovered in the Vatican Library a manuscript that gives full descriptions of the iconography of each one of the spandrel subjects. However, this text, which appears to be a scribe's copy of Bellori's original program, speaks of twelve spandrel spaces, giving to Asia and America separate spaces and allotting a fourth spandrel on the other side to a representation of Time. In spite of the miscalculation about the number of spaces available, this manuscript offers iconographic descriptions that are more complete than those in Bellori's life of Maratti.In the Vatican text the present subject is described in the following way: "La Divina Sapienza starà sedendo stabile septa un cubo; haverà il petto armato, e'l volto scintillante di raggi solari. Terrà nella destra il libro suggellato con li sette suggelli, di cui parla I'Apocalisse, interpretato per gli arcani della sapienza divina. Poserà l'altra mano, e'l braccio sopra un Agnello; poiche il principio della sapienza è il timore di Dio, e l'Innocenza. Sotto di essa apparirà l'Ignoranza fra' l'ornbre, con un lume spento, con gli occhi chiusi, e con gli orecchi asinini" (Montagu 1978, p. 338). On the other hand the subject is described in Bellori's Vita as follows: "divina Sapienza . quella tiene lo scettro come governatrice dell'universo ed insieme il libro con i sette signacoli dell'Apocalisse continente i divini misterii, ed appresso di lei un amorino celeste in sembianza cruccioso discaccia l'Ignoranza infida" (Bellori, p. 598). The present composition involves elements mentioned in both descriptions; the lamb mentioned in the Vatican text can just be discerned at the right, and the angry putto described in Bellori's 'Vita' appears at the left.For other preparatory studies by Carlo Maratti for the decoration of the Great Hall of Palazzo Altieri in the Metropolitan Museum of Art see inv. nos. 64.295.1 and 61.169 (Virtue crowned by Honor), 66.53.3 (Allegory of Peace), 2008.334.1 (Study of a Putto), and 65.206 (Plan for a Ceiling and Nude Figures). Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3600624 Study for the Funeral of Pallas. Artist: Antoine Coypel (French, Paris 1661-1722 Paris). Dimensions: Sheet: 12 3/8 x 15 1/2 in. (31.5 x 39.4 cm). Date: ca. 1716-17.Steeped in honors and titles, Antoine Coypel was a precocious talent from a family of successful painters. He was named first painter to the duc d'Orléans in 1688, director of the Académie Royale in 1714, and First Painter to the king in 1715. His most influential large scale project was undoubtedly the decoration of the Grande Galerie of the Palais Royal in Paris which had as its theme the story of Aeneas. Commissioned in 1701 by Philippe II, duc d'Orléans, the future Regent, the ceiling was completed by 1705, and seven large canvases depicting central moments of the Aeneid were added to the side walls between 1715-17. Many of the canvases are today in poor states of preservation, but the vigor and beauty of Coypel's decoration, which earned him so many accolades in his own day, can today be appreciated in the quality of the surviving preparatory drawings. The Met's sheet first appeared on the New York art market in 2011. It is an energetic and exploratory compositional study for The Funeral of Pallas, ca.1716-17 (Musée du Louvre, Paris), one of Coypel's scenes for the decoration of the Palais Royal. It represents a subject from book X of Virgil's Aeneid, when the body of Pallas is returned to his father Evander, king of the Arcadians. Pallas had gone with Aeneas to fight the Rutuli and lost his life on the battlefield at the hands of Turnus. Coypel depicts the moment when Evander meets the procession returning the body and grieves over the loss of his son. Eight studies of individual figures or heads relating to the subject are in the Louvre (see Garnier, 1989, nos. 531-38, pp.231-32, figs. 448-455), but this is the first study of the entire composition to come to light. Working with impressive speed and dexterity, Coypel employed a mix of three colors of chalk (red, black, and white) on blue paper to block in the major elements of the composition. He then squared the sheet in black chalk to facilitate the process of transfer. Coypel's mastery of classical form and architecture is counterbalanced by the Rubensian effect of the colored chalks, bringing an expressive focus to the grief-stricken figure of Evander as he leans over and clutches the body of his dead son. Together they form a pearly oasis in the dense swirl of soldiers and horses. The most notable changes between this study and the finished painting (known through a print by Louis Desplaces) have to do with the architectural backdrop. The planar row of arches framing distant views of landscape in the drawing were switched in the final painting for an angled view of a fortified wall and tower on the left and a wooded landscape on the right. The treatment of the subject is not unusual, but shows the influence of Le Brun's theories of expression, especially evident in the studies of individual heads.Perrin Stein (2011). Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.