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Design for a Fountain with Pegasus, for the Villa Albani, Rome
Carlo Marchionnica. 1750
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
New York, United States
A horse stands on naturalistic rocky arch with a shallow cascading fountain below that is flanked by park-like walls. A lion sits in left middle ground, while a man in lower right foreground looks upward at the arch. There are trees and low vegetation throughout the composition, which is framed by a ruled border of pen and brown ink on three sides.
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Details
- Title: Design for a Fountain with Pegasus, for the Villa Albani, Rome
- Creator: Carlo Marchionni
- Creator Lifespan: 1702/1786
- Date Created: ca. 1750
- Physical Dimensions: w351 x h319 cm
- Type: Drawing
- Rights: Museum purchase through gift of various donors
- Medium: Pen and brown ink, brush and gray wash, graphite on cream laid paper
- Viewing Notes: In mythology, Pegasus created the first fountain by tapping his hoof to uncover a hidden spring. Marchionni's design with a statue of Pegasus, poised with hoof raised, would have pleased his learned patron, Cardinal Alessandro Albani, collector of classical antiquities. The fountain was intended for the gardens of the Villa Albani but never realized.
- Provenance: Ex-collection Giovanni Piancastelli, Rome.
- Paper Support: Cream laid paper
- Markings: Watermark: in the form of "IV" See Churchill, p. 21 s.
- Inscribed: Lower margin, center, in pen and brown ink: Scala di Palmi Quaranta Romani.
- Exhibitions: New York, NY - CHNDM: Fountains: Splash and Spectacle: Water and Design from the Renaissance to the Present, June 9 - October 11, 1998.Stuttgart, Germany - Staatsgalerie Stuttgart: Von Bernini bis Piranesi: Romische Architekturzeichnungen des Barock, October 2 - December 12, 1993.Brooklyn, NY - The Brooklyn Museum: The Art of Decoration: Drawings and Objects from the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, December 18, 1973 - February 3, 1974.London, England - Victoria & Albert Museum: An American Museum of Decorative Art and Design, June 13 - August 12, 1973.
- Dimensions: 31.9 x 35.1 cm (12 9/16 x 13 13/16 in.)
- Bibliography: Rudolf Berliner, "Zeichnungen von Carlo und Filippo Marchionni," Munchner Jahrbuch der bildenden kunst 9:10 (Munchen: 1958-59): p. 302, fig. 53.Joachim Gaus, Carlo Marchionni (Cologne: Bohlau Verlag, 1967): pp. 42-3, fig. 25.Isa Belli Barsali, Ville di Roma (Milan: Fratelli Fabbri Editori, 1970): p. 316.Victoria and Albert Museum, An American Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, Designs from the Cooper-Hewitt Collection, New York. (London: Arts Council of Great Britian at Victoria and Albert Museum,1973): p.15, cat. no.30.Elisabeth Kieven, Von Bernini bis Piranesi: Romische Architekturzeichnungen des Barock (Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 1993): cat. no. 114, pp. 291, 295 (illus.).Marilyn Symmes, "The Rise and Fall of Water," in Fountains: Splash and Spectacle: Water and Design from the Renaissance to the Present [Marilyn Symmes, ed.] (New York: Rizzoli International Publications Inc. in association with Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, 1988): p. 16, fig. 19.[international edition published by Thames and Hudson, Ltd. London]Marilyn Symmes, "Drawings for the Great Fountains of Rome and Paris," The Antiques Magazine (September 1998): fig. 349.
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