id: 144846 accession number: 1969.70 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1969.70 updated: 2022-09-22 10:10:30.786000 Cupid Drawing His Bow, c. 1560s. Federico Barocci (Italian, 1528–1612). Black chalk with pastel (stumped in places), heightened with white chalk, squared with black chalk; framing lines in graphite; sheet: 42.4 x 27.2 cm (16 11/16 x 10 11/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dudley P. Allen and Delia E. Holden Funds 1969.70 title: Cupid Drawing His Bow title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1560s creation date earliest: 1560 creation date latest: 1569 current location: creditline: Dudley P. Allen and Delia E. Holden Funds copyright: --- culture: Italy, 16th century technique: black chalk with pastel (stumped in places), heightened with white chalk, squared with black chalk; framing lines in graphite department: Drawings collection: DR - Italian type: Drawing find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Federico Barocci (Italian, 1528–1612) - artist --- measurements: Sheet: 42.4 x 27.2 cm (16 11/16 x 10 11/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: description: gray-green laid paper, laid down on cream(3) wove paper watermarks: inscriptions: inscription: lower left, in brown ink: [illegible]; verso, upper left, in graphite: 4 [circled]; upper center left, incised: adamid[i?] bl / hotel f[o?] / Chateau Front[as?] translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Year in Review: 1969 opening date: 1970-01-27T05:00:00 Year in Review: 1969. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (January 27-February 22, 1970). title: Italian Drawings Selected From Mid-Western Collections opening date: 1972-02-25T05:00:00 Italian Drawings Selected From Mid-Western Collections. Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO (organizer) (February 25-April 16, 1972). title: The Graphic Art of Frederico Barocci opening date: 1978-02-15T05:00:00 The Graphic Art of Frederico Barocci. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 15-March 25, 1978); Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT (April 15-June 4, 1978). title: The Draftsman's Eye: Late Italian Renaissance Schools and Styles opening date: 1979-03-06T05:00:00 The Draftsman's Eye: Late Italian Renaissance Schools and Styles. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 6-April 22, 1979). title: Connoisseurship in Italian Figural Compositions opening date: 1980-10-21T04:00:00 Connoisseurship in Italian Figural Compositions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 21, 1980-February 15, 1981). title: Concept, Dogma and Feeling: Italian Drawings 1550-1650 opening date: 1991-08-27T04:00:00 Concept, Dogma and Feeling: Italian Drawings 1550-1650. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 20, 1991). title: Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2000-08-27T00:00:00 Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * --- PROVENANCE Giuseppe Vallardi (1784-1863), Milan (Lugt 1223) date: before 1858 footnotes: citations: A. Mouriau (active ca. 1800-1860), Belgium (Lugt 1853 [see Lugt 1829]) date: ?-1858 footnotes: citations: his sale, Paris, 11 March 1858, no. 21. date: footnotes: citations: Unidentified collector, stamp not in Lugt. date: footnotes: citations: with Nathan Chaikin (b. 1887), Vaud, Switzerland. date: 1969 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1969- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: The grid of squares drawn over this figure was used by the artist or his workshop to transfer the composition to a larger format. digital description: This drawing formed part of the painter Federico Barocci's painstaking working method, which began with studies from nature, included sculpted models in wax, and concluded with full-scale cartoons in color. A detailed figure study such as this would have followed numerous compositional and life studies in preparation for the final cartoon. The squares drawn over the figure indicate it was meant to be transferred to a larger format. Though no corresponding painting by Barocci exists, the drawing appears to have been made in preparation for a picture representing Venus seated in the heavens with Cupid on her knee as he draws his bow to aim at an unsuspecting mortal below. The technique of using black and colored chalks reflects the introduction, in the 1560s, of colored chalks (called "pastelli") to Italy, knowledge of which likely spread from Venice down the Adriatic coast to Barocci's home in Urbino. wall description: This drawing appears to have been made in preparation for a picture representing Venus seated in the heavens with Cupid on her knee as he draws his bow to aim at an unsuspecting mortal below. Some scholars have questioned the authorship of this drawing, but its similarity to other early sheets by the artist suggests that it was indeed made by Barocci. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS "Year in Review 1969." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 57, no. 1 (January 1970). page number: Mentioned: p.48, under n. 155 url: Neilson, Nancy Ward. Italian Drawings Selected from Mid-Western Collections. St. Louis, MO: The St. Louis Art Museum, 1972. page number: Mentioned: p. 31, under n. 8; Reproduced: p. 32 url: Pillsbury, Edmund P., and Louise S. Richards. The Graphic Art of Federico Barocci: Selected Drawings and Prints. New Haven, CT: Yale University Art Gallery, 1978. page number: Mentioned: pp. 38-40, under n. 11; Reproduced: p. 39 url: Olszewski, Edward J., and Jane Glaubinger. The Draftsman's Eye: Late Italian Renaissance Schools and Styles. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1981. page number: Mentioned: pp. 17-18, 55, 60-61, under n. 33; Reproduced: p. 60, n. 33 url: Miller, Michael. Drawing: A Glossary of Materials: Selections from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1987. page number: Reproduced: p. 14 url: McCullagh, Suzanne Folds. "Serendipity in a Solander Box: A Recently Discovered Pastel and Chalk Drawing by Federico Barocci." Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 17, no. 1 (1991): 52-65 + 93-94. page number: Mentioned: pp. 62 and 65 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4101549 DeGrazia, Diane and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000. page number: Mentioned: pp. 38-39 and 284; Reproduced: p. 39, n. 9 url: Emiliani, Andrea. Federico Barocci (Urbino, 1535-1612), vol. 1. Ancona, Italy: Ars Books, 2008. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 114, n. 7.5 url: Olszewski, Edward J., edited. A Corpus of Drawings in Midwestern Collections: Sixteenth-Century Italian Drawings, vol. 1. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepos Publishers, 2008. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 32, n. 28 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1969.70/1969.70_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1969.70/1969.70_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1969.70/1969.70_full.tif