Design for a Painted Wall Decoration for Palazzo Massimo all'Aracoeli (Rome)

Basilio Briccio

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Although registered as a painter at the Roman Accademia di San Luca, Basilio Briccio seems to have mainly been active as an architect. He worked together with his sister Plautilla who is one of the first female architects known to have worked in Italy. This drawing was made for one of Briccio’s lesser known projects: the decoration of a wall in the Palazzo of the ‘Signori Massimi’ in Rome (now destroyed). Presented are trompe l’oeil paintings of marble classical sculptures in niches against a wall with garden access. The artist used this sheet as a presentation drawing to show his patrons what it would look like. The same drawing was subsequently used as a contract between artist and patron. With their signatures in the lower left corner, they both agreed that the executed project would resemble the design as presented in this drawing.

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