The Prophet Joel
early 1570s
Medium
engraving
Dimensions
sheet: 55.9 × 41.5 cm · secondary support: 57.7 × 42.9 cm
Classification
Department
Prints
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Jane and Robert Lewis in memory of Harold Fallon
Accession Number
1990.58
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
About this artwork
During the 1500s Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling was rarely open to the public and thus for the most part inaccessible. Artists, however, were generally allowed to visit the chapel to study and make drawings from the paintings. Giorgio Ghisi did so in the 1540s and created engravings of six of the chapel’s prophets and sybils. His Prophet Joel accurately reproduces the pose, costume elements, and architectural detail of the figure in a voluminous engraving technique, with dramatic darks an...