Recto: An allegorical design in honour of Pietro da Cortona. Verso: Study for the figure of Time
c. 1675RCIN 904091
Carlo Maratti was the leading artist in Rome in the late seventeenth century, and saw himself as the guardian of the classical tradition in painting. This drawing – probably a design for a commemorative engraving – depicts winged Time trampling Envy (gnawing her own heart) while holding aloft a portrait of the painter Pietro da Cortona. The message is that the artist's works would outlive the petty jealousies of his own day.
No. 139