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Youth Playing a Pipe for a Satyr

1645–50
Not on view
The artist ventured here with spellbinding bravura into the bucolic world of satyrs and nymphs, attaining the effect of a deliberately unfinished easel painting. The satyr has finished playing his shepherd's pipe and sprawls out with hedonistic abandon as he listens to the beautiful youth take his turn on a pipe. The satyr may represent Pan or Marsyas, while the youth may be Apollo, Olympos, or Daphnis. None of the Classical myths provides an entirely consistent fit with the composition, but it evokes a gentle, idyllic contest. It may allude to the contrast between the passionate spirit of the Dionysian (as represented by the satyr) and the beauty and clarity of reason of the Apollonian (the youth), which, according to Renaissance and Baroque humanists, were the two opposing impulses of artistic creativity.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Youth Playing a Pipe for a Satyr
  • Artist: Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto) (Italian, Genoa 1609–1664 Mantua)
  • Date: 1645–50
  • Medium: Brush with colored oil paint; paper partly saturated with oil; lined
  • Dimensions: 16 x 21-1/16 in. (40.6 x 53.5 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Gustavus A. Pfeiffer Fund, 1962
  • Object Number: 62.126
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

More Artwork
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Laban searching for idols among Jacob's possessions, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto) Italian, Etching
Laban searching for idols among Jacob's possessions
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto)
ca. 1635–40
Noah and the animals entering the ark, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto) Italian, Monotype
Noah and the animals entering the ark
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto)
1650–55
Finding of the bodies of Saints Peter and Paul, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto) Italian, Etching
Finding of the bodies of Saints Peter and Paul
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto)
ca. 1647–51
'Temporalis Aeternitas', four scholars amongst ruins, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto) Italian, Etching
'Temporalis Aeternitas', four scholars amongst ruins
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto)
Giovanni Domenico de Rossi
1645
Two shepherds, a donkey and other animals in a landscape, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto) Italian, Etching
Two shepherds, a donkey and other animals in a landscape
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto)
ca. 1638–1640

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