Currently not on view
Two Men Playing Racket Game in an Interior
attributed to Giulio Benso, Italian, 1592 - 1668
2003-149
A crowded interior is the setting for this puzzling scene, in which dramatic effects of light, motion, and foreshortening compete for our attention. Two racket-wielding men play some form of ball game, at the risk of knocking over tables and chairs, or damaging the framed pictures on the walls of the narrow, high-raftered room. This drawing has been attributed to the Genoese fresco painter and architect Giulio Benso, who was celebrated for his lively imagination and obsession with perspective.
Information
Title
Two Men Playing Racket Game in an Interior
Maker
attributed to Giulio Benso
Medium
Pen and brown ink with brush and brown wash, over traces of black chalk, on cream laid paper
Dimensions
18.4 x 13.2 cm (7 1/4 x 5 3/16 in.)
frame: 40 x 32.4 x 2.9 cm (15 3/4 x 12 3/4 x 1 1/8 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase, Laura P. Hall Memorial Fund
Object Number
2003-149
Culture
Type
Materials
Sale, Sotheby’s, Milan, May 8, 2002, lot 1296 (as “Luca Cambiaso”); Jean-Luc Baroni Ltd., London; purchased by the Art Museum, 2003.;
- "Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2003," Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 63 (2004): p. 101-141., illustrated p. 128, p. 138
- Laura Giles, Lia Markey, Claire Van Cleave, et. al., Italian Master Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2014)., p. 44, cat. no. 17; p. 45 (illus.); p. 46 (verso illus.); p. 257-258, app. no. 86 (illus.)
