Five Music-Making Figures
1610–62
Medium
Pen and brown ink, brush and blue wash
Dimensions
1-1/15 x 4-9/16 in. (4.8 x 11.6 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1966
Accession Number
66.134.5
Tags
Art Historical Context
Giovanni Francesco Romanelli (1610–1662), a prominent Italian Baroque artist active in Rome, created *Five Music-Making Figures* a delicate preparatory drawing. Rendered in pen and brown ink with brush and blue wash, intimate sheet measures just 4.8 x 11.6 cm, capturing a lively group of men and women engaged in music-making, including harpists. The horizontal format evokes a frieze-like procession, typical of sketches for frescoes or larger compositions in Roman palaces and churches, where Romanelli worked for patrons like Pope Urban VIII. The Baroque era prized such drawings for their role ...
About the Artist
Giovanni Francesco Romanelli · 1610–1662
Italian painter and tapestry designer. Comment on works: Mythology; Religious