Getty Museum

Two Young Women with Putti

Date

about 1630s

Medium

Pen and brown ink and brown wash over black chalk

Culture

French

Department

Drawings

Institution

Getty Museum

A putto and an attendant may be leading a bride--the woman on the left--to her groom while Cupid urges her on, but the subject is not perfectly clear. The drawing might merely represent any classical human marriage scene, or it might represent a more specific mythological theme such as the marriage of Bacchus and Ariadne. Nicolas Poussin used more ink and wash to make drawings than any other medium, combining graceful, fluid lines with a sensitive, judicious use of wash. Here he created beautifully rippling costumes that gently move along with the young women yet also have a modest life of their own. Characteristically, he chose to leave the women's features abstract.

The authoritative record is held by Getty Museum. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.