Andrea Boscoli
Italian, 1550–1606
Sophronia Enters the Palace of Aladin
INV-2021
Andrea Boscoli
Italian, 1550–16061604/06
Sophronia Enters the Palace of Aladin
Andrea Boscoli Italian, 1550–1606 →drawings (visual works)brush and wash
Date
1604/06
Medium
Pen and brown ink, and brush and brown wash, over touches of red chalk, on cream laid paper, laid down on blue laid laminated card
Dimensions
23.9 × 17.9 cm (9 7/16 × 7 1/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray
This is one of a number of drawings the artist made to illustrate scenes from Torquato Tasso’s epic poem Jerusalem Delivered (Gerusalemme liberata), first published in 1581. In order to avert a massacre, Sophronia (seen at left) enters the palace of the Muslim ruler of Jerusalem to plead her Christian people’s innocence.
Andrea Boscoli’s style is characterized by a heavy use of wash, with a calligraphic line that delineates form with great subtlety. He juxtaposes a plunging perspective at left with the up-close palace colonnade at right to create a sense of negative-positive visual tension.
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