Study for Marphisa

Date1850

MediumBrush and brown ink over pencil

Credit LineGift of Dr. George M and Olga Baer, from the Curtis Baer Collection

Dimensions9 x 8 3/16 in. (22.9 x 20.8 cm)

Object number1998.017

Label TextThis piece is one of several preliminary sketches for the painting Marphisa and Pinabello's Lady, which depicts an episode from Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. While the maiden warrior Marphisa and the crone Gabrina are travelling together, they encounter the knight Pinabello and his lady, who mock the old woman and her clothing. In response Marphisa challenges and defeats Pinabello, and then forces the haughty lady to disrobe and give her finery to Gabrina. This sketch reduces the episode to the contrast between the victorious maiden and the humbled lady. The fully-armored Marphisa dominates the central axis of the composition, her arm raised in a powerful gesture, while the lady crouches before her, her exposed flesh indicated by bare paper. This sketch is quite different in composition from the final painting, and may therefore represent an early stage in the creative process.
Exhibition HistoryEin Jahrhundert franzosischer Zeichnung, Paul Cassirer, Berlin, Germany, December 1929 - January 1930
Teekeningen van Ingres tot Seurat, Museum Boymans, Rotterdam, Netherlands, December 20, 1933 - January 21, 1934
Franzosische Meister des 19. Jahrh. und Van Gogh, Kunsthalle, Bern, Switzerland, February 18 - April 2, 1934
Ingres-Delacroix: Dessins, Pastels et Aquarelles, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium, January - February 1936
Fransche Meesters uit de 19e eeuw: Teekeningen, Aquarellen, Pastels, Paul Cassirer, Amsterdam, Netherlands, July - August 1938
Eugene Delacroix, 1798-1863, Kunsthaus, Zurich, Switzerland, January 28 - April 5, 1939
Eugene Delacroix, 1798-1863, Kunsthalle, Basel, Switzerland, April 22 - May 29, 1939
Drawings from the Collection of Curtis O. Baer, The Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, January 11 - February 25, 1958
Classicism and Romanticism, France Drawings and Prints, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, September 15 - November 1, 1970
Drawn from Life: The Human Presence in 17th to 20th Century Drawings, Michael C. Carlos Museum, February 17 - May 14, 1995
The Paris Salon: Drawings and Sculptures from Atlanta Collections, Michael C. Carlos Museum, September 21, 1996 - January 5, 1997
Recent Acquisitions of Old Masters: Durer to Delacroix, Michael C. Carlos Museum, October 6, 2001 - January 28, 2002
Modern and Contemporary Masters: Highlights from the Works on Paper Collection, Michael C. Carlos Museum, January 24 - May 17, 2009
The Eye, The Mind, and the Heart: In Honor of Clark Poling, Michael C. Carlos Museum, January 15 - March 5, 2022
Published ReferencesWilli Wolfradt, "Berliner Ausstellungen," Der Cicerone 22, number 1 (1930): 23.
Ingres, Delacroix: Dessins, Pastels et Aquarelles (Brussels: Le Palais, 1936), number 84.
Eugène Delacroix, 1798-1863 (Zurich: Das Kunsthaus, 1939), 41, number 145.
Fogg Art Museum, Drawings from the Collection of Curtis O. Baer (Cambridge: President and Fellows of Harvard College, 1958), 51-52, number 42.
Eric M. Zafran, Master Drawings from Titian to Picasso: The Curtis O. Baer Collection (Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 1985), 124-25, number 70.
"A Selection of 1999 Museum Aquisitions," Apollo 150 (December 1999): 17-48.
MCCM Newsletter, March - May 2009.
Michael C. Carlos Museum: Highlights of the Collections (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2011), 143.

ProvenancePossibly with Hotel Drouot, Paris, France, February 22-27, 1864 (Lugt 838a), lot 364 (part). With Julius Wilhelm Bohler (1883-1966), Lucerne, Switzerland, by 1930. Ex coll. Curtis O. Baer (1898-1976), New York, by 1958. Thence by descent.

Status

Not on view

Collections