Man Entwined by Two Snakes
Medium
pen and brown ink and brown and blue wash, heightened with white gouache
Dimensions
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Classification
Drawing
Department
Drawings
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Dudley P. Allen Fund
Accession Number
1944.475
Tags
About this artwork
According to contemporary accounts, Michelangelo attended the excavation of the Greek sculpture Laocoön and His Sons when it was unearthed near Rome in 1506. Laocoön was a Trojan priest who, along with his two sons, was attacked by sea serpents sent by the goddess Athena. The emotional agony of the sculpture fascinated Michelangelo and artists throughout Italy, inspiring copies and variations. In this drawing, a northern Italian artist referenced just one figure from the story using the chiarosc...