Getty Museum
Two Studies of an Ancient Statue (recto); Scylla and a Centaur (verso)
Creator
Nicolas PoussinFrench Artist · 1594–1665
All works by this person →> Something celestial shone in his eyes; his pointed nose and wide brow ennobled his modest face. So wrote a biographer about Nicolas Poussin, a philosopher who expressed himself in paint. Pointing to his forehead, Gian Lorenzo Bernini called Poussin "a painter who works up here." Born to Norman peasants, Poussin went to Paris in 1612, working with Mannerist artists and collaborating with Philippe
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1632–1635
- Medium
- Pen and brown ink, with some later red chalk framing lines
- Culture
- French
- Department
- Drawings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
Nicolas Poussin never tired of studying antiquities, and his recordings of them make up a large proportion of his body of drawings. For this sketch, he probably copied two ancient statues, noting each variation in the arrangement of their drapery. Emphasizing the pattern of folds, he traced the heavier cloth of the mantle worn over the lighter, crinkly fabric of the short tunic. The verso shows a section of a Roman table support currently in a museum in Naples. During Poussin's lifetime, the table stood in a Medici family villa in Rome. The left side shows Scylla, a woman who became a female monster with wild dogs baying around her waist. From her rock on the Italian side of the Straits of Messina, she barked like a dog and threatened sailors. A centaur, half horse and half man, supported the right half of the table.
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