Avarice

1590

Jacopo Ligozzi

Artist, Italian, 1547 - 1627

Drawn with pen and brown ink on pale brown paper, a man and woman are surrounded by three skeletons in this vertical composition. The woman sits facing and looking out at us on the right half of the drawing. She sits next to a cloth-covered table, which spans the left half of the composition. The woman rests one elbow on the table in her head in that hand and holds a sack down between her knees with the other. She wears long, voluminous robes over a low-cut bodice. Vessels, jewels, a chest, and other sacks line the floor around her bare feet. A balding, bearded man sits on the far side of the table from her. He is along the left edge of the drawing and faces our right in profile. He writes with a quill on an angled writing desk with an ink well closer to us and an ornate jar on the far side. The leftmost of the three skeletons behind them has a goatee and faces our right in profile, both hands raised. The middle skeleton, between the man and woman, has curly hair and holds a tablet with both bony hands. The third skeleton, to the right, has bat-like wings and holds a sack up in one hand and lifts the other hand high. That raised hand nearly brushes a flying creature with a torso like a plucked turkey, frog legs, a lizard-like, gaping mouth, and three-lobed dragonfly wings. The scene takes place under a deep arch. Through the opening to the right, a person wearing armor raises a sword over another person who crouches and holds up one hand in protection. Touches of gold create delicate highlights on the skeleton’s bones, the people’s features and bodies, and the luxurious objects spread across the picture. The drawing is signed with a monogram with the letters “ILHR” and the date 1590 in the lower left corner. The bag the woman holds is inscribed “cehim” and another at her feet is inscribed “ongavi.”

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    pen and brown ink with brown wash, heightened with gold

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Robert H. and Clarice Smith

  • Dimensions

    overall: 30.6 x 20 cm (12 1/16 x 7 7/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1984.56.1

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Francois II, Duke of Modena [1660-1694] (Lugt 1893); by descent (until 1797?); X.M.C. von Schönberg-Rothschönberg; (sale, E. Arnold Gallery, Dresden, 1858); Ludwig von Biegeleben; (sale, Wawra Vienna, 15 November 1886, no. 2657); by 1916: Moritz von Kuffner, Vienna; by descent; Artemis Fine Arts, Ltd., London, 1982; Robert H. and Clarice Smith, Bethesda (MD); gift to NGA in 1984.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1982

  • An Exhibition of Master Prints and Drawings, Artemis Fine Arts, Ltd., London, 1982, no. 13.

1985

  • Graphics Survey Exhibition, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 1985-1986.

1988

  • Italian Renaissance Drawings, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1988, no cat.

1992

  • From Studio to Studiolo: FLorentine Draftsmanship under the First Medici Grand Dukes, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College; Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, 1991-1992, 26, 108-109, no. 21.

2002

  • "Magnificenza! The Medici, Michelangelo, and the Art of Late Renaissance Florence" (L'ombra del genio: Michelangelo a l'arte a Firenze, 1537-1631), Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, 2002, no. 176.

2014

  • The Poetry of Light - La poesia della luce: Venetian Drawings from the National Gallery of Art, Museo Correr, Venice, Venice, 2014 - 2015, no. 33.

Bibliography

1858

  • Nagler, G. K. Die Monogrammisten. Munich and Leipzig, 1863, 3: 546-547, under no. 1398.

1916

  • Peltzer, Rudolf Arthur. "Hans Rottenhammer." Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen es Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, 33 (1916): 298, 315, 360, fig. 1 (as Rottenhammer).

1920

  • Voss, Hermann. Die Malerei der Spätrenaissance in Rom und Florenz. Berlin, 1920, 2: 422, pl. 165.

1938

  • Thöne, Friedrich. "Jacopo Ligozzi (1542-1627)--Allegories of Envy and Vanity...," Old Master Drawings, 13, no. 50 (September 19380, 26.

1955

  • exh. cat. De Triomf van het Maniërisme de Europese Stijl van Michelangelo tot El Greco, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1955, 119, under no. 210.

1963

  • Bacci, Mina. "Jacopo Ligozzi e la sua posizione nella pittura fiorentina," Proporzioni, Studi di storia dell'Arte, 1963, 452.

1982

  • Case, David. The Calumny of Apelles, A Study in the Humanist Tradition. New Haven and London, 1981: 149, n. 29.

1985

  • exh. cat. Around 1610: The Onset of the Baroque, Matthiesen Fine Art Ltd, London, 1985, 27, under no. 5, repr. fig. 1.

1987

  • Trudzinski, Meinolf. Die italienischen und französischen Handzeichnunben im Kupferstichkabinett der Landesgalerie. Hannover, 1987: 96, under no 53.

1988

  • Viatte, Françoise. Inventaire général des dessins italiens, III, Dessins Toscans XVIe-XVIIIe siècles, Tome 1, 1560-1640. Paris, 1988, 135, under no. 235.

1991

  • From Studio to Studiolo: Florentine Draftsmanship under the First Medici Grand Dukes. Exh. cat. Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH, 1991: 108-109.

1992

  • exh. cat. Jacopo Ligozzi, Le vedute del sacro monte della verna, I dipinti di Poppi e Bibbiena. Castello dei Conti Guidi, Poppi, 1992: 28, 43, n. 106.a

1994

  • Voss, Hermann. La Pittura del Tardo Rinascimento a Roma e a Firenze. Translated by Rossella Zeni. Rome, 1994: 267, pl. 165.

1997

  • Voss, Hermann. Painting of the Late Renaissance in Rome and FlorenceII, The Diffusion and transformation of mannerism, 1570-1600. Translated and revised by Suzanne Pelzel. San Francisco, 1997: 110, fig. 165 (mislabeled as by Domenico Passignano).

Inscriptions

inscribed by artist in pen and brown ink: on bag at bottom left, monogram "IL" joined by bar and cross (later altered by another hand to "HR") and dated; on two bags at bottom right "cehim" and "ongavi"

Watermarks

present but not identified

Wikidata ID

Q64580054

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