Study for Painting, Mount Olympus1750–60
Vertical rectangle. Hermes flying alongside Bacchus and an unidentified goddess seated in the clouds. Apollo and a muse, who holds a plumb-level, are seated on the row of clouds beneath them. More about this work
About this work
Vertical rectangle. Hermes flying alongside Bacchus and an unidentified goddess seated in the clouds. Apollo and a muse, who holds a plumb-level, are seated on the row of clouds beneath them. Hercules is visible in the distance. Several putti are scattered amongst the gods in the clouds.
Text from Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
How it was made
- Opaque watercolour
- Watercolour made opaque with white or chalk and laid in flat, even layers. Persian and Indian painters ground their colours from minerals, applied them with the finest brushes and burnished the finished page.
- Pen and ink
- Drawn with a quill or reed pen, often with wash added by brush to model light and shadow.
- Laid paper
- Handmade on a mould of close-set wires, which leave fine parallel lines you can see when the sheet is held to the light.
Vito D'Anna
Italian, 1718–1769
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1938-88-7331
- Credit
- Courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
- Type
- Drawing
- Department
- Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
Report this work
Close in colour
