Friday, June 22, 2018

Dancers in Art before 1700

Monogrammist E.F.
Dancing pair accompanied by blindfolded Fortune
1693
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Mathäus Küsel after Ludovico Ottaviano Burnacini
Group of young men dancing as the Gods look on from above
 Set-design for opera Il Pomo d'Oro
1668
etching
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

"The twenty-third of the twenty-three stage sets designed by Ludovico Burnacini for Il Pomo d'Oro, Festa Teatrale Rappresentata in Vienna per l'Augustissime Nozze delle Sacre Cesaree e Reali Measta di Leopoldo e Margherita, an opera celebrating the wedding of Emperor Leopold I and Margarita Teresa of Spain in 1666.  Composed by Antonio Cesti with a libretto by Francesco Sbarra.  It was first performed in July 1668 at the Theater auf der Cortina – also designed by Burnacini."

Margarita Teresa, Infanta of Spain, honored by this opera, was a teenager shipped off to Vienna to marry her uncle for dynastic purposes.  She had featured some years earlier as the child-princess- centerpiece of the Velasquez masterpiece Las Meniñas.  The Infanta Margarita died in childbirth a few years after the magnificent wedding celebrated by Il Pomo d'Oro.

Francesco Allegrini
Seated female nude and Dancing female figure
before 1663
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Leonardo Scaglia
Three Dancing Putti
ca. 1640-50
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Cornelis Koning after Willem Pietersz Buytewech
Interior with dancing couples and musicians
ca. 1620
engraving
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Federico Zuccaro
The Allegory of Spring
1579
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

"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."

Dirk Volckertsz Coornhert
The One To Whom Fortune Is Playing Will Dance Merrily
ca. 1560
engraving
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Anonymous Italian artist
Children Dancing
ca. 1550-80
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Amico Aspertini
Five Dancing Putti
before 1552
engraving
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Daniel Hopfer
Virgin and Child with Angels dancing in a landscape
ca. 1530-40
etching
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Anonymous German artist
Dance of Death
ca. 1500-1600
ink drawing with watercolor and gouache
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Rome
Dancing Maenad
1st century AD
glass cameo
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

China (Western Han)
Tomb Figure - Female Dancer
2nd century BC
earthenware statuette
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

"This figure vividly captures the moment when, with one long sleeve thrown back and the other trailing down, a dancer gently stoops and flexes her knees as she lefts one heel to advance her step, performing a dance described in Han dynasty poetry:

Their long sleeves, twirling and twisting,
fill the hall;
Gauze-stocking feet . . . taking mincing steps,
Move with slow and easy gait.
They hover about long and continuous, as if
Stopped in mid-air;
Dazed, one thinks they are about to fall . . ."

Greek culture (Cyprus)
Dancing Youth
3rd century BC
terracotta statuette
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

– quoted texts are from curator's notes at the Metropolitan Museum