Design for a Festival Float or Barge
Circle of Perino del Vaga (Pietro Buonaccorsi) Italian
Possibly by Prospero Fontana Italian
Not on view
Another study with some variations for this elaborate decorative construction, which may well have been intended for a festival float, is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes (inv. C 65.1). Both drawings in New York and Rennes bear a traditional attribution to Polidoro da Caravaggio, but Bernice Davidson pointed out that they are the work of some close follower of Perino del Vaga. According to Florian Härb and Marzia Faietti (see here Bibliography), the Metropolitan Museum of Art drawing could be an early work by the Bolognese painter and prolific drafstman Prospero Fontana (1512-1597) who, after a short period spent with Innocenzo da Imola, joined the Roman workshop of Perino del Vega at just sixteen years of age.
(F.R., 2014)