Seated Triton
Medium
Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, over traces of black chalk; outlines partly incised
Dimensions
8 5/8 x 4 1/4in. (21.9 x 10.8cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Anonymous Gift, in memory of Jacob Bean, 1998
Accession Number
1998.128
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Seated Triton** by Perino del VagaPietro Buonaccorsi created around 1545–47, captures the mythical sea god Triton in a dynamic seated pose. Perino, a leading Mannerist artist and Raphael's pupil, was renowned for his elegant figures and decorative frescoes in Roman palaces and Genoese villas. This late drawing, made just before his death in 1547, reflects Renaissance fascination with classical mythology, where Triton—Poseidon's trumpeting son, half-man and half-fish—symbolized the sea's power and beauty. Executed in pen and brown ink with brush and brown wash over faint black chalk, the wor...
About the Artist
Perino del Vaga (Pietro Buonaccorsi) · 1501–1547
Perino del Vaga, born Piero Bonaccorsi in 1501 near Florence, emerged as one of the most elegant painters of the Mannerist era. Orphaned early—his mother died when he was two months old and his father, a gambler turned soldier, left him in the care of a stepmother—Perino received an unconventional start, apprenticed first to a druggist and then to the mediocre Andrea de' Ceri. At age eleven, he en...