Loading

Cybele before the Council of the Gods

Pietro da Cortona1633

The J. Paul Getty Museum

The J. Paul Getty Museum
Los Angeles, United States

Pietro da Cortona made this drawing as a finished study for an engraving in De florum cultura, the first treatise on horticulture. Pen in hand, Jupiter has signed the edict to exhort all gardeners to cultivate flowers, marking the passing of the Age of Iron to the Age of Flowers. On the right, Cybele, the Phrygian earth mother, enters with her sacred animal, the lion. The council of gods has agreed that she and Flora, Roman goddess of flowers, shall grow flowers on earth.

Pietro da Cortona drew here with the precision and minute detail of a miniaturist, a marked contrast to his usually more rugged and spontaneous approach. He applied brown washes with the point of the brush, used the pen for hatching and cross-hatching, and finally added delicate white highlights. Surface abrasions occurred when the engraver drew a sharp stylus over the outlines to impress the design into the metal printing plate. To replace earlier attempts, he drew Hercules' torso and one of the winged Nike figures on smaller, cut-out pieces of paper overlaying the original sheet.

Show lessRead more
  • Title: Cybele before the Council of the Gods
  • Creator: Pietro da Cortona
  • Date Created: 1633
  • Location Created: Italy
  • Physical Dimensions: 19.5 × 14.4 cm (7 11/16 × 5 11/16 in.)
  • Type: Drawing
  • External Link: Find out more about this object on the Museum website.
  • Medium: Pen and brown ink with brown wash, heightened with white bodycolor, over black chalk, with the outlines indented with the stylus for transfer
  • Terms of Use: Open Content
  • Number: 96.GB.315
  • Culture: Italian
  • Credit Line: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
  • Creator Display Name: Pietro da Cortona (Italian, 1596 - 1669)
  • Classification: Drawings (Visual Works)
The J. Paul Getty Museum

Get the app

Explore museums and play with Art Transfer, Pocket Galleries, Art Selfie, and more

Interested in Visual arts?

Get updates with your personalized Culture Weekly

You are all set!

Your first Culture Weekly will arrive this week.

Home
Discover
Play
Nearby
Favorites