43. Sargent's Sketch of Cellini's "Perseus"

Artists frequently sketch works by other artists that inspire them. John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) produced drawings like this throughout his life, beginning when he was a child touring European museums with his parents. This drawing, taken from a sketchbook, is a study of Benvenuto Cellini's bronze statue of Perseus Holding the Head of Medusa, 1554, in the Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence. It is one of many drawings of the sculpture, as well as an oil painting (Santa Barbara Museum of Art), that Sargent executed around 1907-10. Sargent's handwriting is notoriously difficult to decipher; here he made notes on the effects of light on the sculpture: Highest lights / Left pine apple / and / gold—horizontal / lights on [lowest?] / mouldings / and / thigh of boy / In niche. Sargent returned to the theme of Perseus in his murals for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; see Perseus on Pegasus Slaying Medusa, a panel over the stairway.