1546
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Sketches of Animals (verso) is a 1546 by Perino del Vaga, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see quick, lively lines of animals and a soldier mid-swing—ink on paper, not polished. This was a warm-up sheet. Perino drew it while planning a big fresco about Alexander the Great for the pope’s castle. The soldier’s pose looks like he copied it from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel figures, then tweaked it for his own scene. Look up *sfumato* to see how smoky shading could turn these scribbles into finished walls.
Perino del Vaga made this spirited pen and ink and wash drawing as a preliminary sketch for a fresco cycle depicting the military campaigns of Alexander the Great, intended for the apartments of Pope Paul III in the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. At the time, he was also working on commissions at the Vatican Palace where he studied and drew from the frescoes of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. One pose in the drawing, that of the man in front who, sword poised over his head, prepares to strike a man below, was probably inspired by Michelangelo’s rendering of David and Goliath on the ceiling.…
This artist was in Rome in 1527 when the troops of Charles V sacked the city, and was imprisoned and forced to pay a heavy ransom for his, his wife's, and his daughter's safe release.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Piero Bonaccorsi (1501 – October 19, 1547), known as Perino (or Perin) del Vaga, was an Italian painter and draughtsman of the Late Renaissance/Mannerism.
See the richer artist page
![Various Sketches of the Madonna and Child (recto); Architectural Studies (verso) [partially visible on recto]](https://pub-3a17a9933ad74fb28aa30fa758592f23.r2.dev/artworks/90586edfc8e8efd5/thumb.webp)
![Studies of Horses [verso]](https://pub-3a17a9933ad74fb28aa30fa758592f23.r2.dev/artworks/968bbf047ebcef7b/thumb.webp)
![Studies for Judith and Holofernes, David and Goliath, The Finding of Moses, and Others [recto]](https://pub-3a17a9933ad74fb28aa30fa758592f23.r2.dev/artworks/e7509a7c8dd48fbb/thumb.webp)
