The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 15, 2025

Poros Assailed by the Macedonian Army (recto); Sketches of Animals (verso)

c. 1545/47

Perino del Vaga

(Italian, 1501–1547)
Italy, 16th century
pen and brown ink (iron gall) and brush and brown wash; framing lines in gold paint
Sheet: 19.3 x 27.4 cm (7 5/8 x 10 13/16 in.); Secondary Support: 22.5 x 30.5 cm (8 7/8 x 12 in.)
Delia E. Holden and L. E. Holden Funds 1992.3
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

This artist was in Rome in 1527 when the troops of Charles V sacked the city, and was imprisoned and forced to pay a heavy ransom for his, his wife's, and his daughter's safe release.

Description

Perino del Vaga made this spirited pen and ink and wash drawing as a preliminary sketch for a fresco cycle depicting the military campaigns of Alexander the Great, intended for the apartments of Pope Paul III in the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. At the time, he was also working on commissions at the Vatican Palace where he studied and drew from the frescoes of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. One pose in the drawing, that of the man in front who, sword poised over his head, prepares to strike a man below, was probably inspired by Michelangelo’s rendering of David and Goliath on the ceiling. Perino adapted the violent pose for a military rather than biblical subject, filling out the scene with trumpeting elephants and a pile of soldiers in combat. On the verso of the sheet, Perino drew a quick sketch of a standing camel and another, closer view of the animal's head and legs.
  • ?-1992
    Robert Frary, Winter Park, Florida
    1992-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Turner, Evan H. "The Year in Review for 1992." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 2 (February 1993): 38-79. Mentioned: p. 70, no. 167 www.jstor.org
    Kliemann, Julian. "Rom, Engelsburg, Sala Paolina." In Wandmalerei in Italien: Die Ziet der Hochrenaissance und des Manierismus 1510-1600, edited by Julian Kliemann and Michael Rohlmann, 352-369. Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2004. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 356, n. 79
    Kliemann, Julian. "Rome, Castel Sant'Angelo, Sala Paolina." In Italian Frescoes, High Renaissance and Mannerism, 1510-1600, edited by Julian Kliemann and Michael Rohlmann and translated by Steven Lindberg, 352-369. New York: Abbeville Press, 2004. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 356, n. 79
    Olszewski, Edward J., edited. A Corpus of Drawings in Midwestern Collections: Sixteenth-Century Italian Drawings, vol. 1. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepos Publishers, 2008. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 316, n. 255
  • Master/Apprentice: Imitation and Inspiration in the Renaissance. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 13, 2019-February 23, 2020).
  • {{cite web|title=Poros Assailed by the Macedonian Army (recto); Sketches of Animals (verso)|url=false|author=Perino del Vaga|year=c. 1545/47|access-date=15 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1992.3