Benvenuto Cellini, Act III: The Casting of Perseus
Medium
Lithograph in black on ivory China paper laid down on white wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 22.7 × 15.4 cm (8 15/16 × 6 1/8 in.); Sheet: 30.7 × 21.6 cm (12 1/8 × 8 9/16 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
44101
Art Historical Context
Henri Fantin-Latour's *Benvenuto Cellini, Act: The Casting of Per* (1888) is a masterful lithograph capturing a pivotal moment in the life of the flamboyant 16th-century Italian Renaissance Benvenuto Cellini. Part of Fantin-Latour's series illustrating Théophile Gautier's play about Cellini, this print depicts the dramatic climax of casting Cellini's iconic bronze statue *Perseus with the Head ofusa* (1545–1554) in Florence. Cellini's autobiography vividly recounts the peril—molten metal nearly destroying the foundry—forcing him to smash the furnace himself to save the work, embodying Renaissa...
About the Artist
Henri Fantin-Latour · 1836–1904
Ignace Henri Jean Théodore Fantin-Latour was born on January 14, 1836, in Grenoble, France, to portrait painter Théodore Fantin-Latour, who gave him his earliest drawing lessons. The family relocated to Paris in 1841, where in 1850, at age 14, he enrolled in the École de Dessin, studying under Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, whose innovative memory-based method of drawing from observation profoundly ...