Allegory of Africa
1728–74
Medium
Black chalk (and graphite?)
Dimensions
9 x 13 5/8 in. (22.8 x 34.6 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of the Estate of James Hazen Hyde, 1959
Accession Number
59.208.102
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Allegory of Africa** by Gottfried Bernhard Go (1707–1770), a masterful black chalk drawing (possibly heightened with graphite), captures the 18th-century European with the continents through symbolic personification. Created during Goetz's active years in Augsburg, Germany, this intimate sheet measures just 9 x 13⅝ inches, typical of drawings for larger decorative schemes in the Baroque-Rococo tradition. Donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1959 the Estate of James Haz Hyde, it resides in the Drawings and Prints department, showcasing Goetz's skill in evoking texture and depth with m...