In June 1637, Pietro da Cortona, the leading Italian Baroque painter of his time, arrived in Florence and immediately began a fresco cycle commissioned by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando II (1610-1670) and his wife Vittoria della Rovere (1622-1694), for the Camera della Stufa in the Pitti Palace. The subject was the Four Ages of the World as recounted at the beginning of Ovid's Metamorphoses, a classical literary source. This drawing is a study for the couple seated at the left in the Age of Gold. In this fresco the young woman crowns the seated youth with a laurel of victory, an allusion to the name Vittoria, while putti, laden with branches of oak (rovere), advance without disturbing a docile lion, these are references to the Medici - Della Rovere marriage symbolized by the youthful couple.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Study of Two Figures for the Age of Gold
Artist:Pietro da Cortona (Pietro Berrettini) (Italian, Cortona 1596–1669 Rome)
Date:1637
Medium:Black chalk, slightly reworked by the artist with the wet tip of the chalk stick
Dimensions:12 11/16 x 9 3/4in. (32.3 x 24.7cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:Bequest of Walter C. Baker, 1971
Accession Number:1972.118.250
Marking: At lower left, collector's stamps of Sir Joshua Reynolds (Lugt 2364), and William Mayor (Lugt 2799)
Sir Joshua Reynolds (British); William Mayor (British); Henry Oppenheimer (British); his sale, Christie's, London, July 10, 13–14, 1936, lot 76; Earl of Harewood; Christie's, London, July 6, 1965, lot 124, repr.
Morgan Library & Museum, New York. "Drawings from New York Collections, II. The Seventeenth Century in Italy," February 23, 1967–April 22, 1967.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," February 26–May 5, 1996.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," September 21–November 30, 1998.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," July 15–September 29, 2014.
Tancred Borenius "Drawings and Engravings by the Carracci." Print Collector's Quarterly. vol. 9, 1922, p. 114, ill.
Malcolm Campbell, Maria Fossi Tedorow Mostra di disegni di Pietro Berretini da Cortona per gli Affreschi di Palazzo Pitti Exh. cat., Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi. Florence, 1965, p. 23.
Walter Vitzthum "Review of Uffizi Cortona exhibition." in Master Drawings. vol. 4, no. 1, 1966, fig. no. pl. 40, p. 63, ill.
Jacob Bean, Felice Stampfle Drawings from New York Collections, Vol. II: The Seventeenth Century in Italy. Exh. cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 1967, cat. no. 60, ill.
Malcolm Campbell Pietro da Cortona at the Pitti Palace, A Study of the Planetary Rooms and Related Projects. Princeton, 1977, pp. 33, 264, no. 21, fig. 7, ill.
Maria Giannatiempo López Disegni di Pietro da Cortrona e Ciro Ferri dalle Collezioni del Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe. Exh. cat., Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome. Rome, 1977, pp. 15-16, fig. 1, under no. 4.
Jacob Bean, Lawrence Turčić 17th century Italian Drawings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1979, cat. no. 136, fig. no. 136, pp. 104-05, ill.
Simonetta Prosperi Valenti Rodinò Pietro da Cortona e il disegno. Exh. cat., Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Accademia di San Luca, Calcografia, Rome. Milan, 1997, p. 146, under no. 8.3.
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