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Image scanned from a transparency and color-corrected by Pat Cagney.
Cephalus Discovers the Mortally Wounded Procris
Image scanned from a transparency and color-corrected by Pat Cagney.
Image scanned from a transparency and color-corrected by Pat Cagney.

Cephalus Discovers the Mortally Wounded Procris

Artist Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (Guercino) (Italian, 1591 - 1666)
Dateca. 1644
MediumPen, ink, laid paper, wash
DimensionsOverall: 8 3/8 x 12 1/2 in. (21.3 x 31.8 cm)
ClassificationsEuropean art
Credit LineMuseum purchase
Object number50.48.90
Terms
  • Mythology
  • Death
  • Men
  • Women
  • Brown
On View
Not on view
DescriptionThis drawing uses pen and brown ink with brown wash on laid paper. It depicts the classical mythology of Cephalus, who upon discovering he mortally wounded his wife, throws his arms upward before collapsing on her. She lies in the lower right of the drawing with a spear through her chest. Some thinly sketched trees are in the background.

Label TextGiovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Guercino Italian (1591-1666) Cephalus Discovers the Mortally Wounded Procris, ca. 1644 Pen and brown ink, brown wash Museum purchase 50.48.90 This drawing was one of at least four sketches in which the Bolognese artist Guercino worked out the composition for his 1644 painting of Cephalus and Procris. The painting (formerly Gemäldegalerie, Dresden; destroyed in World War II) was commissioned for the French queen, Anne of Austria, who gave it to her minister, Cardinal Mazarin. Recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses, the tragic tale of the hunter Cephalus and his wife Procris was, during the 17th century, one of the most popular stories of ill-fated lovers found in classical mythology. In the drawing Guercino depicts the story's climax, when Cephalus, out hunting with his bow and arrow, discovers to his horror that he has accidentally wounded Procris. His arms flung wide in grief and shock, Cephalus collapses before his dying wife.

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