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Allegories of Fortitude and Patience

Creator

Italian Artist · 1541–1609

After Titian's death in 1576, Federico Zuccaro may have been the most famous painter in Europe as well as the most influential, traveling widely and creating a huge number of works, largely of religious subjects. The son of a painter in Urbino, he absorbed Mannerism in Rome under his brother Taddeo, who was a dozen years his senior. When Taddeo died in 1566, Federico took over his flourishing prac

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Date: about 1595
Medium: Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk
Culture: Italian
Department: Drawings
Institution: Getty Museum

Allegorical figures of Fortitude and Patience sit on either side of a large, empty circle that Federico probably intended to contain a device, such as the sugar loaf belonging to the Zuccaro family. Fortitude, one of the four cardinal virtues, sits on the left, symbolizing courage, strength, and endurance. A lion signifying bravery crouches at her feet, while an ox peers over her shoulder. On the right, Patience carries the yoke of servitude or obedience and sits with a lamb at her feet. An ass stands behind her. The drawing's irregular shape and viewpoint suggest to scholars that it was intended for a ceiling decoration. The light seems to come from the upper left, highlighting one side of the women's faces while casting the other side of their bodies into dark shadow.

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