Justice

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

After working in Rome in the 1510s, Giulio Romano became the court artist to Federico II Gonzaga, 1st Duke of Mantua (r. 1530–40), where his universal talents as an architect, designer, and painter transformed the duke’s unadorned Palazzo del Te into an elaborate setting for leisure and courtly activity. It was through drawings that Giulio planned everything from the most important narrative sequences of the palace to the most seemingly insignificant ornamental details. This drawing is preparatory for the frescoed figure of Justice, which appears on the vaulted ceiling of the Camera di Attilio Regolo painted between 1530 and 1534. Justice appeared between narrative scenes that exemplified the moral virtue of ancient military leaders and of the duke. Giulio Romano was one of the most gifted students of the painter Raphael, under whom he worked to decorate the papal apartments at the Vatican in the 1510s.