Getty Museum
The Agony in the Garden
Creator
Valerio CastelloItalian Artist · 1624–1659
All works by this person →"From foreign countries, including all of France, orders for his pictures came to Genoa, and this raised their prices too high for words," wrote Valerio Castello's biographer in 1674. Tragically, Castello died suddenly at the height of a brilliant career. By passionately studying a vast range of sources, Castello formed a unique, sophisticated artistic style. Born to a family of painters, the youn
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1645
- Medium
- Pen and blackish brown ink and light brown wash, heightened with white gouache
- Culture
- Italian
- Department
- Drawings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
Taking the subject from the Gospel of Luke, Valerio Castello captured the dramatic scene in which Christ prays earnestly before his Crucifixion, on a knoll above the apostles sleeping below. The artist relied on line to create gradations of light and shadow and to model the figures' forms, unifying the drawing with a wide range of hatching and cross-hatching. Light diagonal lines create the dark clouds on the left and the folds in the apostles' robes, while delicate strokes of bodycolor create luminous patterns of highlights. Scholars have been unable to identify any painting whose composition corresponds to this drawing. Judging from its high degree of finish and small scale, it was more likely made as a design for an etching or engraving.
The authoritative record is held by Getty Museum. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
Get printable QR codesHide QR codes
Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.
Related across collections
Semantically similar works from Getty Museum and other institutions.