Study for Allegorical Figure of Prudence

Study for Allegorical Figure of Prudence

Perino del Vaga (Pietro Buonaccorsi)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This drawing of a graceful figure in diaphanous, billowing drapery relates to a fresco in the Sala Paolina, the papal reception hall in Castel Sant’Angelo decorated by Perino and his workshop between 1543 and 1548. It is a study for Prudence, one of the female personifications of the Virtues who appear in niches between the monumental renderings of scenes from the life of Alexander the Great . Like the study for Alexander Cutting the Gordian Knot in the Museum's collection (1984.413), the drawing would have been used as a model by Perino’s assistants, who were charged with carrying out his ideas.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Study for Allegorical Figure of PrudenceStudy for Allegorical Figure of PrudenceStudy for Allegorical Figure of PrudenceStudy for Allegorical Figure of PrudenceStudy for Allegorical Figure of Prudence

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.