Getty Museum

Taddeo's Hallucination (99.GA.6.14)

Date

about 1595

Medium

Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk

Culture

Italian

Department

Drawings

Institution

Getty Museum

Federico Zuccaro described this scene in his notes: "One should not keep quiet to what happened to [Taddeo Zuccaro] during his return: tired of walking and suffering from fever, he stopped on the banks of a river, and waiting for someone to take him across, he rested and fell asleep; he woke up all sick from the pain he had and looking at the bank of the river, the stone and the gravel seemed as painted and historiated, similar to the facade and works of Polidoro [da Caravaggio] that he saw in Rome; this pleased him greatly. So shaken was his mind, and with the imagination he had, he really believed these to be what they seemed to be. He began his search for the stones that seemed better and more beautiful; he filled a sack, in which he carried his small things and his drawings." In a continuous narrative, Federico represented his brother four times. Taddeo falls asleep by a stream on the left and dreams in a circle above his head. In his illness he awakens to a hallucination that the river stones are painted with figures by Polidoro. He then loads his sack with these precious objects and struggles onwards.

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