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Read the Latin notes Rubens wrote along the top: he named one bearded man “Socrates without doubt” and called the woman resting her chin on her hand Xanthippe “in one of her moods.”
Rubens made this chalk drawing during his years in Italy, from 1600 to 1608, copying three figures from an ancient Roman sarcophagus that he probably saw in the garden of the Roman collector Ciriaco Mattei. Chalk was easier to carry than pen and ink, so it suited drawing ancient sculpture on the spot. He recorded the outlines and shadows of the carved bodies and left out their architectural setting.
Black chalk on cream laid paper · 28.5 × 42 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Baroque
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Studies of a Roman Sarcophagus
- Artist
- Peter Paul Rubens Flemish, 1577-1640
- Date
- 1602/03
- Medium
- Black chalk on cream laid paper
- Dimensions
- 28.5 × 42 cm (11 1/4 × 16 9/16 in.)
- Credit line
- The Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.