Design for a Fountain with Two Water-Spouting Lions (recto); Sketch for Triumph of Galatea [?] (verso).
1652–1725
![Design for a Fountain with Two Water-Spouting Lions (recto); Sketch for Triumph of Galatea [?] (verso). by Giovanni Battista Foggini](https://images.artheonmuseum.org/met/dp/thumb/design-for-a-fountain-with-two-water-spouting-346394.webp)
Medium
Pen and brown ink, over traces of black chalk. Verso: pen and brown ink over black chalk (Verso)
Dimensions
sheet: 5 15/16 x 5 3/4 in. (15.1 x 14.6 cm)
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, 1952
Accession Number
52.570.262
Tags
Art Historical Context
Giovanni Battista Foggini (2–1725), a leading Florentine Baroque artist, sculptor, and designer, created this exquisite double-sided drawing as a preparatory study. On the recto, it a dynamic design for a fountain with water-spouting lions, the grandeur of 17th-century Italian ornamental architecture. Lions, symbols of strength and nobility, were popular motifs in Baroque fountains,oking the opulent gardens of Medici villas. The verso holds a tentative sketch possibly depicting the *Triumph of Galatea*, a mythological scene from classical lore celebrating the sea nymph's victory, hinting at Fo...
About the Artist
Giovanni Battista Foggini · 1652–1725
**Giovanni Battista Foggini** (1652–1725) was a leading Italian sculptor and architect of the late Baroque period, born in Florence within the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. He began his career under the patronage of the Medici family, who sponsored his artistic training. In 1673, at the age of 21, Cosimo III de' Medici sent the young Foggini to Rome to join the newly founded Accademia Fiorentina, where ...