Currently not on view
Seated Male Nude,
ca. 1618–24
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1598–1680; born Naples, Italy; died Rome, Italy
2005-128
Bernini’s graphic oeuvre, which largely consists of quick sketches for sculptural and architectural projects, includes a handful of finished red chalk life studies of muscular male nudes, later known as academies. These may have been made as demonstration pieces in the context of the informal life-drawing classes that Bernini is said to have staged in his studio. Modest in scale yet powerfully three-dimensional in effect, this relatively early example displays Bernini’s ability to convey theatrical monumentality on paper. Through his economical handling of red and white chalks, surface and contour are expressively transformed by flickering light and surrounding atmosphere.
More About This Object
Information
Title
Seated Male Nude
Dates
ca. 1618–24
Maker
Medium
Red chalk heightened with white chalk on buff laid paper
Dimensions
42.2 x 27.2 cm (16 5/8 x 10 11/16 in.)
frame: 61.3 x 45.6 x 3.2 cm (24 1/8 x 17 15/16 x 1 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase, Laura P. Hall Memorial Fund and Fowler McCormick, Class of 1921, Fund
Object Number
2005-128
Inscription
Inscribed recto, upper left, in brown ink: [. . . ]
Innocente (?); lower center, in pen and brown ink
(in different hand): 11
Culture
Type
Materials
Subject
Sale, Sotheby’s, London, April 30, 1991, lot 35 (as “Roman School, 17th century”); Yvonne Tan Bunzl, London; sale, Sotheby’s, London, May 7, 2003, lot 31 (as “Attributed to Annibale Carracci”); Jean-Luc Baroni Ltd., London; purchased by the Art Museum, 2006.;
- "Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2005," Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 65 (2006): p. 49-81., p. 72-73 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 70 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 70
- 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. 25, fig. 9.1
