Pietro da Cortona Design for a Mace with the Barberini Bees ca. 1630-35 drawing Victoria & Albert Museum |
Pietro da Cortona Design for a Frame with the Arms of Pope Urban VIII Barberini ca. 1630-40 drawing British Museum |
Pietro da Cortona Design for a Title Page before 1669 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
Pietro da Cortona Fresco Design for Allegorical Figure bestowing Papal Tiara on Urban VIII Barberini ca, 1632-39 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
Pietro da Cortona Allegory of the House of Barberini (design for engraved book illustration) 1631 drawing Museo del Prado, Madrid |
Pietro da Cortona Allegorical Image with Eagle battling Serpent before 1669 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Pietro da Cortona Holy Trinity with St Michael conquering the Dragon 1666 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |
"Cortona, it emerges, was a late developer, and the artistic circles he frequented in Rome, where he arrived in c. 1612, were much more varied than had previously been thought. Pietro matured slowly under the successive guidance of Andrea Commodi and Baccio Ciarpi, and none of his paintings can be securely dated earlier than 1623, the year in which he first emerges as an autonomous artist. And the circle of his early patrons in Rome – far from being limited to the Sacchetti for whom he executed several major works – notably included the Albertoni, Colonna, Crescenzi, Mattei and Orsini families, as well as Giovanni Argenti and Giuseppe Paolucci. To these should be added the inevitable Cassiano dal Pozzo, who must not only have encouraged Cortona's study of the antique but also put him in touch with influential contemporaries such as Simon Vouet. It is also worth stressing the early links of the artist – whose piety is underlined by all his biographers – with the Oratorians, for whom he worked up to his death."
– Stéphane Loire in The Burlington Magazine (March 1998) reviewing three 1997 exhibitions mounted in Rome to honor the tercentenary of Cortona's birth
Pietro da Cortona Golden Statue of Constantine the Great holding a Cross (tapestry design) ca. 1636 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
Pietro da Cortona (designer) Golden Statue of Constantine the Great holding a Cross 1636 tapestry woven by Barberini Manufactory, Rome Philadelphia Museum of Art |
Pietro da Cortona (designer) Constantine burning the Memorials in order to give Tax Concessions to the Christians 1634 tapestry woven by Barberini Manufactory, Rome Philadelphia Museum of Art |
Pietro da Cortona (designer) Apparition of the Cross before Constantine 1633 tapestry woven by Barberini Manufactory, Rome Philadelphia Museum of Art |
Pietro da Cortona (designer) Sea Battle between the Fleets of Constantine and Licinius 1635 tapestry woven by Barberini Manufactory, Rome Philadelphia Museum of Art |
Pietro da Cortona (designer) Constantine slaying the Lion 1637 tapestry woven by Barberini Manufactory, Rome Philadelphia Museum of Art |
Pietro da Cortona (designer) Constantine ordering the Destruction of Pagan Idols 1637 tapestry woven by Barberini Manufactory, Rome Philadelphia Museum of Art |