Getty Museum
Two Standing Male Figures (recto); A Man Reclining and Other Studies (verso)
Creator
Andrea MantegnaItalian Artist · 1431–1506
All works by this person →Painter, draftsman, and printmaker Andrea Mantegna was born near Padua, Italy, around 1431. At the age of eleven, he entered the workshop of Francesco Squarcione, who legally adopted him after the death of his father. At seventeen, Mantegna won his independence from Squarcione after bringing him to court for exploitation and fraud. During the fifteenth century, Padua's intellectual climate and rel
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1456
- Medium
- Pen and brown ink, traces of black chalk (recto); pen and brown ink over black chalk (verso)
- Culture
- Italian
- Department
- Drawings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
Two male figures stand in a relaxed, classical contrapposto pose, with each one's body weight resting on one leg. The figure on the left steadies a large shield decorated with a Medusa-like head and looks to the side, apparently gazing at the book being read by his companion. Scholars are uncertain about the identity of these figures. Andrea Mantegna may have made the studies in preparation for an altarpiece in Verona or for his partly destroyed frescoes in the Ovetari Chapel in Padua. On the verso, he added a reclining male nude and a man with an uplifted arm among the inscriptions-possibly Mantegna's own exercises in penmanship.
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