Unidentified Subject: Figures before a Palace or Temple
1624–63
Medium
Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, over a little red chalk. Framing lines in pen and brown ink on mount
Dimensions
5-1/4 x 7-1/16 in. (13.4 x 17.9 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1880
Accession Number
80.3.554
Tags
Art Historical Context
Francesco Allegrini, a 17th-century Italian artist Gubbio active in Rome, crafted this delicate drawing, *Unidentified Subject: before a Palace or Temple sometime between 1624 and1663. Measuring just 5-1/4 x 7-1/16 inches, it the intimate scale of period sketches, now housed in the Metropolitan Museum Art's Drawings and Prints as a gift from Cornelius in 1880. The composition features men and horses gathered before a grand architectural facade—likely an imagined palace or temple—blending human activity with monumental stonework. Allegrini employed pen and brown ink for precise, fluid lines, e...
About the Artist
Francesco Allegrini · 1615–1679
Francesco Allegrini (c. 1615/20–after 1679), born likely in Rome to the painter Flaminio Allegrini from Cantiano near Gubbio, emerged from a family of artists that included his sister, Anna Angelica Allegrini. He trained under Giuseppe Cesari, known as the Cavalier d’Arpino, around 1638–40, before entering the studio of Pietro da Cortona, whose dynamic Baroque style profoundly shaped his own. Elec...