The Idolatry of Solomon
Medium
Pen and brown ink, point of brush and black ink, brush and brown wash, and white and blue gouache, framing lines in brown ink
Dimensions
sheet: 24.8 × 43.3 cm · secondary support: 25.5 × 44.1 cm
Classification
Drawing
Department
Drawings
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
John L. Severance Fund
Accession Number
1987.142
Tags
About this artwork
Pietro da Cortona was one of the most successful and active fresco painters in Rome in the mid-1600s. This drawing is a preparatory sheet—highly worked-up with many different mediums—for one of the artist's six frescoes portraying the story of Solomon commissioned by the Roman nobleman Asdrubale Mattei (1556-1638) for the gallery of his Palazzo Mattei di Giove. Reflecting the artist's as well as his patron's interest in classical antiquity, Cortona combined a classical relief-like composition wi...