Compositional Drawing for Mythological Scene with Subjects Before a King
(Verso) Sketch for Tirsenia Transforming into a Lemon Tree
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Catalogue Number:
52
Artist:
Giovanni Francesco Romanelli (1610-1662)
Title:
Compositional Drawing for Mythological Scene with Subjects Before a King; Verso: Sketch for Tirsenia Turning into a Lemon Tree
Work Type:
Drawing
Date:
c. 1646
Culture:
Italian
Medium:
graphite, black chalk, and brown ink on cream laid paper
Dimensions:
4 1/8 X 8 3/4 in.
Watermark:
fleur de lis above two rounded hills
Condition:
generally clean, intact, stable
Credit Line:
Cornell College, Gift of Robert Sonnenschein, II
Accession Year:
1951
Object Number:
1951.52
Commentary:
The drawing was initially attributed to Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669), and Alasko determined that the work might have been by François Verdier (1651-1730). It shares some stylistic affinities with Giovanni Francesco Romanelli’s The Banquet of Dido and Aeneas from the British Museum. Romanelli was a former student of Domenichino and had worked with Pietro da Cortona. The key to its attribution is on the verso of the drawing, where the transformation of a woman into a lemon tree is sketched. At first glance, one might think of Apollo and Daphne; however, women hold onto the transforming figure in this composition. The subject of Tirsenia, Mother of Hermonillus, Transforms into a Citrus Tree was created for Hesperides sive de malorum aureorum cultura et usu. Libri Quatuor by Giovanni Battista Ferrari and a print copy of Romanelli’s design by Cornelius Bloemaert is located at the Centraal Museum Utrecht.
Giovanni Battista Ferrari, Hesperides sive de malorum aureorum cultura et usu. Libri Quatuor (Rome: Sumptibus Hermanii Scheus, 1646).
Christina Mazzoni, Golden Fruit: A Cultural History of Oranges in Italy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018).