The Descent into Limbo
Andrea Mantegna
mid-15th century
Medium
Pen and brown ink, brown wash
Dimensions
10 9/16 x 7 7/8 in. (26.9 x 20 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Robert Lehman Collection
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number
1975.1.274
Tags
Male NudesFemale NudesChrist
About the Artist
Andrea Mantegna · 1431–1506
Andrea Mantegna was born around 1431 near Padua, in the Venetian Republic, the son of a carpenter. At approximately age eleven he was taken into the workshop of the Paduan painter and antiquities collector Francesco Squarcione, who enrolled him as a guild member and immersed him in the study of Roman sculpture and classical Latin. Though Mantegna later claimed that Squarcione had exploited his lab...