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"Friendship Is Equality; A Friend Is Another Self" [fol. 10 recto]

French early 16th Century

1514

ink

paper

From the collection of National Gallery of Art

Renaissance Renaissance Allegory

Dominant colour

"Friendship Is Equality; A Friend Is Another Self" [fol. 10 recto] is a 1514 ink by French early 16th Century, a Renaissance work, held at National Gallery of Art.

Who painted this?: French early 16th Century
When & what style?: 1514 · Renaissance
Where can I see it?: National Gallery of Art

About this work

This image shows a group of five people, with two women on the left and right, a man in the center, and two more people below him. The central figure wears a shirt with "ANIMUS" written on it and holds a scale. The women are dressed in long robes, and the people below are in simpler attire. The scene is rendered in brown ink and wash on laid paper. A notable detail is the use of brown ink and wash, which gives the image a sense of depth and texture. The artist's choice of medium adds to the overall mood of the piece. The Renaissance movement, which this image is a part of, is worth exploring further.

About the artist

Artist

French early 16th Century

A French draftsman from the early 1500s filled sheets of laid paper with tiny, sharp-tongued instructions—ink sketches paired with warnings like “Do Not Eat Your Heart Out” or “Feed Not Things That Have Sharp Claws.”…

See the richer artist page