1622
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
The Idolatry of Solomon is a 1622 by Pietro da Cortona, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a crowded scene of people worshipping a golden statue while King Solomon watches from his throne. This isn’t the final painting—it’s a detailed practice sheet. The artist used many materials to plan the colors and shapes before painting the real fresco on a palace wall. The drawing shows how carefully he designed every figure, even in the background. To see how this turned into a full wall painting, look up *Pietro da Cortona*.
Pietro da Cortona was one of the most successful and active fresco painters in Rome in the mid-1600s. This drawing is a preparatory sheet—highly worked-up with many different mediums—for one of the artist's six frescoes portraying the story of Solomon commissioned by the Roman nobleman Asdrubale Mattei (1556-1638) for the gallery of his Palazzo Mattei di Giove. Reflecting the artist's as well as his patron's interest in classical antiquity, Cortona combined a classical relief-like composition with specific references to Roman objects and architectural elements in the composition. The subject…
Pietro da Cortona completed this drawing and the six frescoes related to it for a prominent patron and palazzo in Rome when he was just 27 years old.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Pietro da Cortona (Italian: ; 1 November 1596 or 1597 – 16 May 1669) was an Italian Baroque painter and architect.
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