Group of Entangled Nude Figures
Medium
Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash on cream laid paper
Dimensions
3-3/4 x 7-11/16 in. (9.6 x 19.5 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1880
Accession Number
80.3.12
Tags
Art Historical Context
This delicate drawing, *Group of Entangled N Figures*, created by an anonymous Italian artist 1600 and 1800, a dynamic tangle of male and female nudes in pen and brown ink with brush and brown wash on cream laid paper. Measuring just 3¾ x 7⅝ inches, its intimate scale suggests it was a preparatory study, likely executed in an artist's studio or academy for honing anatomical precision and compositional flow. The fluid lines and subtle washes evoke the lively energy of intertwined bodies, a motif popular in Italian draftsmanship during the Baroque and early Rococo periods. In 17th- and 18th-cen...