Diana and Apollo Slaughtering the Children of Niobe

c. 1550

Pirro Ligorio

Associated Names
Pirro Ligorio

Artist, Italian, c. 1513 - 1583

This is a drawing featuring multiple figures and gestures, executed in red chalk. The composition depicts entwined figures, some reclining, others gesturing upwards. A figure with a moon symbol on their headgear appears to be levitating from clouds. The composition conveys movement and emotion, suggesting themes of divine intervention or celestial phenomena.

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    red chalk, squared with black chalk and indented for transfer, on two joined sheets of laid paper

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Jeffrey E. Horvitz

  • Dimensions

    sheet: 36 x 675 cm (14 3/16 x 265 3/4 in.) (irregular)

  • Accession Number

    2008.117.3

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Brentano-Birckenstock Collection; (sale, Sotheby's New York, 13 January 1989, no. 111); Jeffrey Horvitz, New York; (sale, Sotheby's New York, 23 January 2008, no. 2, bought in); gift to NGA, 2008.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1991

  • Italian Old Master Drawings from the Collection of Jeffrey E. Horvitz, Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL, 1991, no. 8.

Bibliography

2009

  • Grasselli, Margaret Morgan. "Three Italian Drawings from the Horvitz Collection." National Gallery of Art Bulletin 41 (2009): 22.

Wikidata ID

Q64619705

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