Bacchus and Ariadne

c. 1880

John La Farge

(American, 1835–1910)

Culture

America

Medium

red chalk (rubbed in places)

Support

Cream(1) wove paper

Measurements

Image: 41 x 36.8 cm (16 1/8 x 14 1/2 in.); Sheet: 52.9 x 42.6 cm (20 13/16 x 16 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Dudley P. Allen Fund 1954.360

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Location

Not on view

Description

In the early 1880s, John La Farge worked with a team of artists, including the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907), to produce decorations for the home of the American industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt. La Farge's designs made many allusions to the art of the Italian Renaissance and to the splendid decorations created for the Medici banking family in Florence. In this drawing he used a medium common in Italian drawings—red chalk—in self-conscious emulation of Renaissance practice.