1624
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
From "Bizzarie di varie Figure" is a 1624 ink by Giovanni Battista Bracelli, a Baroque work, held at National Gallery of Art.
This drawing shows two strange, towering figures lifting a box between them. Their heads are topped with odd crowns, and they each hold a long pole under the box’s legs. Inside the box sits a small, masked face with wings—like a mix of a person and a bird. The figures’ bodies are skinny, almost like columns, and their hands look too big for their arms. The box’s tiny face might be a trick to make us think bigger. This kind of weird, symbolic image was common in the 1600s to make people question what they see. Want to see more like this? Look up etching to learn how artists carved these lines into metal.
Giovanni Battista Bracelli or Braccelli is the name of more than one engraver and painter active in central Italy in the Baroque period, between about 1616 and 1649.
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