1584
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
The Abduction of a Sabine Woman is a 1584 by Andrea Andreani, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see three bodies tangled in mid-air: a Roman man lifting a struggling woman while an old man below tries to stop him. This is a print of Giambologna’s famous sculpture, made just after the marble original went on view in Florence. The print lets more people see the sculpture’s wild, twisting energy—something hard to show in a flat image. To see how light and shadow shape drama like this, look up *chiaroscuro*.
A pinnacle of sculpture in the generation after Michelangelo was Giambologna’s Abduction of the Sabine Women , depicted here in a contemporaneous print by Andrea Andreani. Giambologna created a twisting harmony of three forms that capture the narrative of a Roman male abducting a Sabine woman and vanquishing a Sabine male below. Giambologna’s sculpture was installed in Florence in the public piazza near Michelangelo’s David .
The Abduction of a Sabine Woman is the first attempt in the chiaroscuro technique by Andrea Andreani, as well as the first chiaroscuro ever to depict a work of sculpture.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Andrea Andreani (1540–1623) was an Italian engraver on wood, who was among the first printmakers in Italy to use chiaroscuro, which required multiple colours.
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