Red Chalk – Italian Drawings – 1725-1750

Aureliano Milani
Landscape
before 1749
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Aureliano Milani
Distant Landscape with Tree in Foreground
before 1749
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Aureliano Milani
Hilly Landscape with Three Figures
before 1749
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Giambattista Tiepolo
Head of Satyr
ca. 1750
drawing
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Giambattista Tiepolo
Drapery Study, Man wearing a Cloak
ca. 1750
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Giambattista Tiepolo
Half-Length Study of Soldier with Sword
ca. 1750
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum

Anonymous Artist after Sebastiano Ricci
Family of Centaurs
ca. 1730-50
drawing
Kabinet Grafike, Zagreb, Croatia

Giuseppe Maria Crespi
St Paul
ca. 1725-30
drawing
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Giuseppe Maria Crespi
Christ crowned with Thorns
before 1747
drawing
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Pietro Longhi
Dignitary holding a Document
ca. 1730-40
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Francesco Solimena
Study of Right Arm
before 1747
drawing
private collection

Pompeo Batoni
Académie
ca. 1745
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Pompeo Batoni
Study for Hercules at the Crossroads
ca. 1740-42
drawing
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Pompeo Batoni
Studies of Bearded Man
ca. 1740-45
drawing
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Pompeo Batoni
Antique Sculpture, Draped Male Torso
ca. 1750
drawing
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Grecian Marbles in Vienna

Ancient Greece
Fragment from the Northern Frieze of the Parthenon
442-438 BC
marble
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

This fragment with two young horsemen came from the northern frieze of the Parthenon.  It was probably acquired in Venice by Marchese Tommaso degli Obizzi (died 1805) for his collection at Catajo Castle near Este (also known as the Este-Catajo collection).  Much of the temple had been destroyed in 1687 during the siege by Venetian troops, and this fragment was likely carried home as a war souvenir at that time.  The general European prestige of the Parthenon sculptures did not then exist, only evolving toward the end of the 18th century.  Catajo Castle and its contents passed into the hands of the Austrian royal family by inheritance during the 19th century.     

Ancient Greece
Wounded Amazon
ca. 400-350 BC
marble relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

This relief was found in front of the theater in the ruined city of Ephesus on the Ionian coast (now part of Turkey).  There, it was installed in the street pavement.  Presumably it was originally created for the late classical Temple of Artemis (or the Artemision) of Ephesus, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.  The wounded Amazon is believed to have composed part of the frieze ornamenting that structure.  It came to Austria in the early 20th century as a gift from the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II to Emperor Franz Joseph. 

Ancient Greece
Battle of Greeks and Amazons
ca. 350-300 BC
marble sarcophagus
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The sarcophagus was discovered on the island of Cyprus in 1557 and taken to Venice.  By 1567 it was in the possession of the Venetian branch of the Fugger family, prominent traders from Augsburg.  The Hapsburgs acquired it in the early 17th century and brought it to Vienna.  There, it was installed in a palace garden.  By the early 19th century the sarcophagus had been brought indoors as part of the Antikenkabinett, later incorporated into the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Ancient Greece
Muse
ca. 330-320 BC
marble statue
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The Muse's arms and hands (holding flutes) are not original, but are products of a modern restorer's fantasy.  This statue is classified by the Kunsthistorisches Museum as late 4th-century Greek work, but then also (confusingly) described as a later Roman copy.  The same obscure curatorial discrepancy between label and description applies to several of the other "Greek" pieces shown below.

Ancient Greece
Head of Eros
3rd century BC
marble
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Female Figure
3rd century BC
marble statue
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Head Arsinoe III (Ptolomaic Queen)
ca. 225-200 BC
marble
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Figure of Young Man
ca. 200 BC
marble relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Centaur
2nd-1st century BC
marble statue
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Dancing Muse
2nd-1st century BC
marble statuette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Head of Satyr
2nd century BC
marble
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Grave Stele of Dionysios and Melitine
ca. 125-100 BC
marble
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Head of Artemis
ca. 120 BC
marble
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greece
Portrait Statue of a Man
ca. 100 BC
marble fragment
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The Seven Planets in 1539

Sebald Beham
Title-page - The Seven Planets
Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn
1539
engraving
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Sebald Beham
The Seven Planets - Sun
1539
engraving
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Sebald Beham
The Seven Planets - Moon
1539
engraving
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Sebald Beham
The Seven Planets - Mars
1539
engraving
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Sebald Beham
The Seven Planets - Mercury
1539
engraving
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Sebald Beham
The Seven Planets - Jupiter
1539
engraving
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Sebald Beham
The Seven Planets - Venus
1539
engraving
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Sebald Beham
The Seven Planets - Saturn
1539
engraving
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

" . . . Ptolemy describes a universe in which each planetary 'shell' is contiguous with that of the bodies immediately above and below it.  This system allowed him to compute the absolute dimensions and distances of all parts of the universe out to the sphere of the fixed stars, which he found to be less than 20,000 earth-radii from the central earth (less than the distance from the earth to the sun by modern computation).  This vision of a small and completely determined universe, although not universally accepted even in late antiquity, became the canonical view of the Middle Ages, in both east and west, and is enshrined in biblical exposition and learned poetry as well as in the works of professional astronomers.  It was a strong argument against consideration of the heliocentric hypothesis, which entailed a vastly larger universe in which the fixed stars were at enormous distances."

– from the article Astronomy in The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edition), edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (Oxford University Press, 1996)

"From a modern perspective it is the postulated link, causal or semiotic, between celestial and terrestrial events that renders astrology suspect.  Most ancients took that link for granted, under a belief in a 'universal sympathy' which connects all parts of the cosmos in a harmoniously functioning whole.  Stoicism legitimized divination of all sorts; and the worship of the stars, especially the sun, added further authority to astrology, as did the common belief in the soul's celestial origin and destiny.  Many intellectuals accordingly accepted and justified the art, including Ptolemy, who makes a well-reasoned case that astrology is but the application of astronomy, in a necessarily fallible way, to the sublunary environment." 

– from the article Astrology in The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edition), edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (Oxford University Press, 1996)

Sebald Beham
Hercules Abducting Iole
1544
engraving
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Sebald Beham
Hercules Battling the Trojans
1545
engraving
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Sebald Beham
Hercules Battling the Centaurs
1542
engraving
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Sebald Beham
 Hercules Slaying Nessus
1542
engraving
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

CENTAURS – A tribe of beasts, human above and horse below; the wild and dangerous counterpart of the more skittish satyrs, who are constructed of the same components but conceived as amusing rather than threatening creatures.  In both cases it is the very closeness of the horse to humanity that points up the need to remember that a firm line between nature and culture must be drawn.  Pirithous the king of the Lapiths, a Thessalian clan, paid for his failure  to absorb this lesson when he invited the Centaurs to his wedding feast; the party broke up in violence when the guests had tasted wine, that quintessential product of human culture, and made a drunken assault on the bride.  'Ever since then,' says Antinous in the Odyssey, 'there has been conflict between centaur and man.'  Their uncontrolled lust, violence, and greed for alcohol challenge the hard-won and ever-fragile rules of civilization, which are symbolically reasserted by the victories of Hercules (whose wife Dejanira the Centaur Nessus tried to rape) . . . 

– from the article Centaurs in The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edition), edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (Oxford University Press, 1996)

Sebald Beham
Hercules and the Nemean Lion
1542
engraving
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Sebald Beham
Hercules on the Pyre
1548
engraving
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Modern Renderings of Centaurs

Edward Poynter
Centaur and Dragon
before 1919
watercolor, bodycolor
British Museum

William Harcourt Hooper
Trade-card proof - Muse receiving letter from Centaur and letter from Triton
ca. 1880-1910
wood-engraving
British Museum

John Flaxman
Battle of Centaur and nude man
before 1826
drawing
British Museum

John Sell Cotman
The Centaur
1806
wash-drawing inspired by the arrival of the Elgin Marbles in London
British Museum

On Seeing the Elgin Marbles

My spirit is too weak – mortality
    Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
    And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.
    Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep
    That I have not the cloudy winds to keep
Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain
    Bring round the heart an undescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
    That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old time – with a billowy main –
    A sun – a shadow of a magnitude.

– by John Keats, "composed on 1 or 2 March 1817 after visiting the British Museum with Benjamin Robert Haydon to see the Parthenon frieze which Lord Elgin had recently acquired for the nation.  According to Joseph Severn, Keats went 'again and again to see the Elgin Marbles, and would sit for an hour or more at a time beside them rapt in revery'."

Richard Earlom after Giovanni Battista Cipriani
Battle of Theseus and Centaur
1789
etching, aquatint
British Museum

Caroline Metz
Centaur and woman confronted by monster
ca. 1773-94
drawing
British Museum

follower of Agostino Carracci
Centaur abducting woman, pursued by a man
before 1657
drawing
British Museum

Pasquale Ottino
Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs
before 1630
wash drawing
British Museum

Pieter de Bailliu after Peter Paul Rubens
Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs with abduction of Hippodamia
ca. 1620-50
engraving
British Museum

Charles David after Cornelis Cort after Frans Floris
Hercules preventing Centaurs from abducting Hippodamia
1620s
engraving
British Museum

Antonio Tempesta
Hercules battling Centaurs
1608
etching
British Museum

Étienne Delaune
Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs with abduction of Hippodamia
ca. 1550-72
engraving
British Museum

Battista Franco
Abduction of Dejanira by Centaur Nessus, resisted by Hercules
ca. 1530-61
etching, engraving
British Museum

attributed to Allaert Claesz
Ornament design with Centaurs bearing off women
ca. 1520-60
engraving
British Museum

attributed to Pietro Bergantini workshop after Luca Signorelli
Dish of tin-glazed earthenware - Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs
1525
maiolica
British Museum