Study for a Triton (recto); Anatomical Studies ? (verso)

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This rough and hasty sketch by the great Baroque sculptor effectively conveys the stance and the action of Triton as he rises from the sea and raises the huge shell to his lips. The moment depicted could be that described by Ovid in the Metamorphoses when, after the great flood, Neptune summoned Triton from the depths to sound his horn and make the waters retreat. The sketch corresponds closely to the finished fountain in the Piazza Barberini in Rome, designed by Bernini in 1642-43, where water gushes forth from the conch shell and spills down into the shell-shaped basin in which the Triton sits, raised aloft by intertwined dolphins. This vigorous study represents the principal element of Bernini's Triton Fountain and it is the sculptor's only known autograph drawing for that project, which was commissioned by one of his most important and powerful patrons, Pope Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini). The fountain is near the Palazzo Barberini.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art