Unidentified Study

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Drawing details

Title: Unidentified Study
Date: c.1872-73
Media: Silverpoint on paper
Dimensions: 12.3 x 7.2 cm
Location: Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University
Picture credit: Courtesy of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Friends of the Fogg Art Museum Fund
Reference number: 1946.35.3
Inscriptions: Inscribed "violet doves in to / Fontanalia - varro de Ling Lat / VI. 22 / lt. blue fig. - older tree / - many gry cols - ang old dull / with brown / C + P gr. gold - brown leaves light / against shal wall / white wall, [illegible] / pale fair flsh -

Interpretation

The notes on this page include references to Marcus Terentius Varro (116BC - 27BC), who wrote six books on grammar known as 'De Lingua Latina' and Fontanalia (or Fontinalia), a celebration held on 13 October in honour of Fontus, the Roman god of wells and springs (mentioned in 'De Lingua Latina' VI, 22). On this day wells and fountains were decorated with garlands and flowers. The rest of the notes presumably refer to another painter's work.

Description

Page from a sketchbook. Two small, rough studies of an object, drawn in relation to a wall. 

Provenance

Purchased by the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, from Geoffrey Steele (antiquarian bookseller, c.1907-2000) from his bookshop at RFD 1, Mahopac, New York, in 1946 for $6.00.