Seated Triton

Art Historical Context

**Seated Triton** by Perino del VagaPietro Buonaccorsi created around 1545–47, captures the mythical sea god Triton in a dynamic seated pose. Perino, a leading Mannerist artist and Raphael's pupil, was renowned for his elegant figures and decorative frescoes in Roman palaces and Genoese villas. This late drawing, made just before his death in 1547, reflects Renaissance fascination with classical mythology, where Triton—Poseidon's trumpeting son, half-man and half-fish—symbolized the sea's power and beauty. Executed in pen and brown ink with brush and brown wash over faint black chalk, the work showcases Perino's virtuoso technique. The incised outlines suggest it served as a preparatory cartoon, likely transferred to a larger fresco or tapestry, a common practice for grand decorative schemes. At just 8 5/8 x 4 1/4 inches, its intimate scale belies the fluid modeling and anatomical precision that defined Mannerism's graceful elongation and poised energy. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's and Prints department (an anonymous 1998 gift in memory of curator Jacob Bean), piece offers a window into 16th-century workshop life. Visitors will appreciate how it bridges Raphael's harmony with Mannerism's sophistication, inviting us to imagine Triton's splash amid opulent Renaissance courts.

About the Artist

Perino del Vaga (Pietro Buonaccorsi) · 1501–1547

Perino del Vaga, born Piero Bonaccorsi in 1501 near Florence, emerged as one of the most elegant painters of the Mannerist era. Orphaned early—his mother died when he was two months old and his father, a gambler turned soldier, left him in the care of a stepmother—Perino received an unconventional start, apprenticed first to a druggist and then to the mediocre Andrea de' Ceri. At age eleven, he en...