Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Neoclassical Drawings from Italy

Charles Townley (collector)
Terracotta Campana relief of Mounted Warrior battling Amazon
ca. 1768-1805
drawing
British Museum

Charles Townley (collector)
Antique Bust of Clytie
ca. 1768-1805
drawing
British Museum

Charles Townley (collector)
Sculpture group of Nymph and Satyr
ca. 1768-1805
drawing
British Museum

Sestina: Of the Lady Pietra degli Scrovigni

To the dim light and the large circle of shade
I have clomb, and to the whitening of the hills,
There where we see no color in the grass.
Natheless my longing loses not its green,
It has so taken root in the hard stone
Which talks and hears as though it were a lady.

Utterly frozen is this youthful lady,
Even as the snow that lies within the shade;
For she is no more moved than is the stone
By the sweet season which makes warm the hills
And alters them afresh from white to green
Covering their sides again with flowers and grass.

When on her hair she sets a crown of grass
The thought has no more room for other lady,
Because she weaves the yellow with the green
So well that Love sits down there in the shade 
Love who has shut me in among low hills
Faster than between walls of granite-stone.

She is more bright than is a precious stone;
The wound she gives may not be healed with grass:
I therefore have fled far over plains and hills
For refuge from so dangerous a lady;
But from her sunshine nothing can give shade 
Not any hill, nor wall, nor summer-green.

A while ago, I saw her dressed in green 
So fair, she might have wakened in a stone
This love which I do feel even for her shade;
And therefore, as one woos a graceful lady,
I wooed her in a field that was all grass
Girdled about with very lofty hills.

Yet shall the streams turn back and climb the hills
Before Love's flame in this damp wood and green
Burn, as it burns within a youthful lady,
For my sake, who would sleep away in stone
My life, or feed like beasts upon the grass,
Only to see her garments cast a shade.

How dark soever the hills throw out their shade,
Under her summer-green the beautiful lady
Covers it, like a stone covered in grass.

 Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

Charles Townley (collector)
Discophorus statue in Sala della Biga at the Vatican
ca. 1768-1805
drawing
British Museum

Felice Giani
Angel
ca. 1800
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Felice Giani
Centaur Chiron teaching young Achilles to hunt with a bow
ca. 1805
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Felice Giani
Apollo killing Python
ca. 1796-98
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Felice Giani
Design for column-capital with figures
1820
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Felice Giani
Design for Columns honoring Italian Authors - Ariosto, Goldoni, Dante, Alfieri
before 1823
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Felice Giani
Five Women at a Fountain
ca. 1810-23
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Felice Giani
Apollo driving the Chariot of the Sun - design for Sala di Apollo e Diana, Palazzo Bianchetti, Bologna
drawing
ca. 1810-23
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Felice Giani
Temple of Fame (based on the Pantheon in Rome) - Design for Stage-curtain
ca. 1815
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
Architectural perspective study for ceiling decoration
before 1809
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
Four imaginary Palace interiors
before 1809
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum