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The Idolatry of Solomon
About the Artwork
Pietro da Cortona was one of the most successful and active fresco painters in Rome in the mid-1600s. This drawing is a preparatory sheet—highly worked-up with many different mediums—for one of the artist's six frescoes portraying the story of Solomon commissioned by the Roman nobleman Asdrubale Mattei (1556-1638) for the gallery of his Palazzo Mattei di Giove. Reflecting the artist's as well as his patron's interest in classical antiquity, Cortona combined a classical relief-like composition with specific references to Roman objects and architectural elements in the composition. The subject represents a foolish episode from Solomon's life, when he was lured into the worship of idols by the "foreign" women with whom he kept company.
Inscriptions
verso of secondary support, upper center, in graphite: 44; center, in blue ballpoint: Maria Elvira Celia Mendez de Bernasconi [underlined] / 1977; center, in graphite: Paolo Farinato; center, in graphite: [illegible]; lower left, in graphite: [illegible, partially masked]
Provenance
ca. 1900: Capitaine C. Prayer (1826-1900), Milan (Lugt 2044) ca. 1900: de Bernasconi family, Buenas Aires ?-1987: by descent to Marià Elvira Celia Méndez de Bernasconi (1927-2005), Buenos Aires (Lugt 5374) 1987: Christie's London, 1 April 1987, no. 66. 1987: with Kate Ganz, Ltd, London 1987-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
The Year in Review for 1987. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 24-April 17, 1988). Concept, Dogma and Feeling: Italian Drawings 1550-1650. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 20, 1991). Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Pietro da Cortona (Italian, 1596–1669)
- Date
- 1622–23
- Medium
- Pen and brown ink, point of brush and black ink, brush and brown wash, and white and blue gouache, framing lines in brown ink
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 24.8 x 43.3 cm (9 3/4 x 17 1/16 in.); Secondary Support: 25.5 x 44.1 cm (10 1/16 x 17 3/8 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Accession no.
- 1987.142
More by Pietro da Cortona in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00011090
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