Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Antique Statues in 17th-century Drawings and Prints

Claude Lorrain
Study of an Antique Statue
ca. 1630-35
drawing
British Museum

Claude Lorrain was prolific in drawings over a long career spent almost altogether in and around the city of Rome, but he seldom drew antique statues. In fact, his acknowledged weakness as an artist was figure-drawing. This fact gives the beautiful Claude drawing above an extra touch of significance, the statue-nature of the subject only half-indicated, as if the artist still might choose to represent it alive instead of inanimate.

Anonymous printmaker
Antique statue of a standing man
ca. 1600-1650
engraving
British Museum

Cornelis Galle after Peter Paul Rubens
Antique Roman statues in togas
1608
engraving
British Museum

Cornelis van Dalen after François Perrier
Antique Statue of Bacchus
1638
engraving
British Museum

Johannes Teyler
Studies of statues - Venus de' Medici Belvedere Antinous
ca. 1688
wash drawing
British Museum

Wenceslaus Hollar after Hendrick van der Borcht
Studies of the Venus de' Medici
ca. 1650
etching
British Museum

Peter Paul Rubens
Study of the Farnese Hercules
17th century
drawing
British Museum

Paulus Pontius after Peter Paul Rubens
Antique statue of Centaur with Cupid
ca. 1630
engraving
British Museum

Michiel Natalis
Antique Statue of Pomona in niche
ca. 1626-68
engraving
British Museum

Claude Mellan
Antique Bust of a Roman Senator
1670
engraving
British Museum

Hendrik Goltzius after Polidoro da Caravaggio
Mercury in niche
17th century
drawing
British Museum

Wenceslaus Hollar
Antique Statue of Homer in a landscape
ca. 1660
etching
British Museum

Isaac de Caus
copy of the Borghese Gladiator (with added weapons) as a garden statue at Wilton
ca. 1645-50
etching
British Museum 

Jacob Gole after Godfried Schalcken
Drawing from a cast by candle light
ca. 1675-1724
mezzotint
British Museum