Half Figure of a Youth with Outstretched Left Arm and Bowed Head (recto); Two Women, One Holding a Vase, the Other a Book, and a Seated Man (verso)
1554–61
Medium
Red chalk (recto); pen and brown ink (verso) (the ink of this latter study has bled through at lower left of recto)
Dimensions
7 5/16 x 12 9/16in. (18.6 x 31.9cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1880
Accession Number
80.3.58
Tags
About the Artist
Battista Franco · 1510–1561
Battista Franco, known as il Semolei, was born in Venice around 1510, though his career unfolded largely in Rome and at the courts of central and northern Italy. He came to Rome in his twenties and immediately fell under two powerful spells: the inexhaustible riches of classical antiquity and the overwhelming presence of Michelangelo. Franco spent years making drawings after ancient sculptures and...