Study for the Age of Bronze

Pietro da Cortona (Pietro Berrettini)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This rapid sketch of a Roman military triumph was intended for a fresco painting alluding to the theme of the "Age of Bronze" in the Camera della Stufa of the Palazzo Pitti in Florence that Cortona began in 1637 for Ferdinando II de' Medici. According to the account of the early history of the world given in Ovid's Metamorphoses, the Age of Bronze was thought to have been bellicose in spirit: "...ready to fly to arms savage, but not yet impious." In keeping with this Ovidian theme, the composition here is dominated at the right by an enthroned general, who from a high throne leans forward to crown the victorious soldiers of the Roman legions approaching from the left; on the lower right, nude prisoners dejectedly crouch in bondage. The Museum's vast collection of drawings by the Baroque master Pietro da Cortona includes a second study for the "Age of Bronze" (see inv. no. 1972.118.248)

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