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Design for a Frieze with a Putto and Acanthus Leaves
About the Artwork
After working to fresco the papal apartments in Rome under Raphael in the 1510s, Giulio Romano became the court artist to Federico II Gonzaga, 1st Duke of Mantua (r. 1530–40), where his universal talents as an architect, designer, and painter transformed the duke’s unadorned Palazzo del Te into an elaborate setting for leisure and courtly activity. It was through drawings that Giulio planned everything from the most important narrative sequences of the palace, to the most seemingly insignificant ornamental details. This drawing—perhaps a design for a rinceaux, a frescoed decoration to the side or above a doorway—depicts Giulio’s typically inventive approach to classical ornament, with acanthus leaves that twirl together in a complex figure-eight pattern and a putto emerging from the floral center.
Provenance
(Galerie de Bayser, Paris, France) January 28, 2020: (Christie's, New York, NY) March 2, 2020: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Giulio Romano (Italian, 1492/99–1546)
- Date
- c. 1520
- Medium
- Pen and brown ink, red and black chalk
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 32.6 x 16.2 cm (12 13/16 x 6 3/8 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Anne Elizabeth Wilson Memorial Fund
- Accession no.
- 2020.70
More by Giulio Romano 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-00011256
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