Design for a Catafalque
Medium
Brown ink and wash
Dimensions
10-13/16 x 7-7/8 in
Classification
Drawings|Ornament & Architecture
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1968
Accession Number
68.638.1
Tags
Art Historical Context
This delicate drawing, titled *Design for a Cataque*, hails from an anonymous Bolognese artist of the 18th century a period when Bologna flourished as a hub for architectural innovation and ornate decorative arts in Italy. A catafalque was an elaborate temporary platform used to display a coffin during funerals, often for nobility or clergy, transforming solemn rites into grand spectacles of draped fabrics, columns, and symbolic motifs. This design exemplifies the Baroque-influenced Bolognese tradition of theatrical ornamentation, where architecture blurred into ephemeral performance. Rendere...