Study for Nude Male Figures Supporting a Frame and Plan of the Ceiling Decoration of Palazzo Altieri, Rome

Study for Nude Male Figures Supporting a Frame and Plan of the Ceiling Decoration of Palazzo Altieri, Rome

Carlo Maratti

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

During the pontificate of Clement X Altieri (1670–1676), his family palace on the Piazza del Gesù in Rome was enlarged and redecorated. The leading Baroque artist in Rome, Carlo Maratti was commissioned to paint the main room between 1674 and 1677, but only the fresco that fills the long, narrow central section of the vault was executed. The undecorated portions of the vault were to contain allegorical figures representing Religion, Faith, Divine Wisdom, and Evangelical Truth. A document for this never-completed project, this sheet was related by Walter Vitzthum in 1965 to Maratti's plan for the decoration of the vault of the Great Hall in the Palazzo Altieri; on the London market the drawing had been attributed to Pietro da Cortona. The nude male figures are studies for those that appear painted in grisaille and supporting the corners of the frame of the central fresco composition, the Allegory of Clemency (see Schiavo, pl. 34). The frame of this central panel is indicated to the right, as are-in a very summary fashion-the spandrels of the vault. For other preparatory studies by Carlo Maratti for the decoration of Palazzo Altieri in the Metropolitan Museum of Art see inv. nos. 64.295.1 and 61.169 (Virtue crowned by Honor), 66.53.3 (Allegory of Peace), 66.137 (Allegory of Divine Wisdom or Divina Sapienza), and 2008.334.1 (Study of a Putto).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Study for Nude Male Figures Supporting a Frame and Plan of the Ceiling Decoration of Palazzo Altieri, RomeStudy for Nude Male Figures Supporting a Frame and Plan of the Ceiling Decoration of Palazzo Altieri, RomeStudy for Nude Male Figures Supporting a Frame and Plan of the Ceiling Decoration of Palazzo Altieri, RomeStudy for Nude Male Figures Supporting a Frame and Plan of the Ceiling Decoration of Palazzo Altieri, RomeStudy for Nude Male Figures Supporting a Frame and Plan of the Ceiling Decoration of Palazzo Altieri, Rome

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.