drawing
- Museum number
- 1987,0725.11
- Description
-
Allegory of night; a winged female with putti
Pen and brown ink, over black chalk
Verso: The same subject
Black chalk
- Production date
- 1661-1707
- Dimensions
-
Height: 373 millimetres
-
Width: 273 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Lit.: N. Turner, 'Italian Drawings in the BM, Roman Baroque Drawings', London, 1999, I, no. 34
Turner 1999
Four drawings in the Kunstmuseum, Düsseldorf, are later studies for the same composition (Graf, 1986, 1, nos 584-7), three of them for individual figures. The compositional study (Graf, no. 584) slightly varies the design: three small putti beneath the cloud in the present drawing are replaced by two larger ones holding torches, one of them also pouring the morning dew. Night is usually personified as a winged female floating in the sky, sometimes holding a child in each arm, representing Sleep and Death; she may be accompanied by her usual attributes of an owl, masks and poppies.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1991 Jan-April, BM, Recent Acquisitions (no cat.)
- Acquisition date
- 1987
- Acquisition notes
- This item has an uncertain or incomplete provenance for the years 1933-45. The British Museum welcomes information and assistance in the investigation and clarification of the provenance of all works during that era.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1987,0725.11
