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Object Timeline
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1980 |
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2015 |
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2021 |
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2022 |
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2025 |
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Drawing, Ornament Design, Roman Standards and Rinceau Panel with Griffons
This is a Drawing. It was created by Michel Angelo Pergolesi. It is dated 1776 and we acquired it in 1980. Its medium is pen and ink, brush and watercolor over graphite on laid paper. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.
Cooper Hewitt’s watercolors are developed from Pergolesi’s ornament sketches in the collection of the Morgan Library & Museum. This striking composition, featuring fantastic griffons whose tails morph into leafy spiraling coils called “rinceaux,” derives from the sketch seen in the center of the scrapbook page at left. What sets the finished watercolor apart is Pergolesi’s skillful use of constantly shifting color, which he has carefully planned in the sketch. There, we find his annotations indicating areas to be colored, for example, in pink, golden yellow, deep purple, and Prussian blue, and instructions to create highlights by reserving areas of blank white paper. In the watercolor, these blank areas can be spotted among the pink leaves and flowers.
It is credited Gift of Unknown Donor.
Its dimensions are
48.3 × 34.3 cm (19 in. × 13 1/2 in.) Mat: 71.8 × 56.5 cm (28 1/4 × 22 1/4 in.) Center Design Motif: 30.5 × 7.4 cm (12 in. × 2 7/8 in.)
Cite this object as
Drawing, Ornament Design, Roman Standards and Rinceau Panel with Griffons; Michel Angelo Pergolesi (Italian, active ca. 1760–1801); pen and ink, brush and watercolor over graphite on laid paper; 48.3 × 34.3 cm (19 in. × 13 1/2 in.) Mat: 71.8 × 56.5 cm (28 1/4 × 22 1/4 in.) Center Design Motif: 30.5 × 7.4 cm (12 in. × 2 7/8 in.); Gift of Unknown Donor; 1980-32-1436
This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Mr. Pergolesi's Curious Things.
