This drawing was sold yesterday for £29,161,250 or $47,941,095 in London (Christie’s). This head is a sketch for one of the figures on the “Parnassus” wall in Stanza della Segnatura in Vatican. I wrote about one of the walls in Stanza della Segnatura – “The School of Athens” in my post Hypatia of Alexandria and the End of Reason.
I wonder if the Hypatia sketch would go on sale? I doubt it will beat this, there is somehting magical about this muse. Plus the androgynous confusion with Hypatia. The irony of this is that the Vatican apparatchiks had the ideological problem with Hypatia but they let the beautiful muses on the “Parnassus” wall slide.
Below is the “Parnassus” wall facing “The School of Athens” wall (there are two more walls: “La Disputa”, “The Cardinal Virtues and two scenes” and the ceiling frescoes).
Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican
Raffaello Sanzio, The Parnassus 1509-10 Fresco, width at base 670 cm Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican (Apollo in the middle)
The fresco shows the mythological Mount Parnassus where Apollo resides surrounded by the nine muses, nine poets from antiquity, and nine contemporary to Raffaello Sanzio poets.
Statius, Thalia, Clio, Euterpe and Calliope
Terpsichore with the instrument. Erato - greek goddess, muse of erotic poetry and mime (we se her from the back)
To the right: Sappho
Greek goddess, muse of erotic poetry and mime Erato (we se her from the back), to her right are Ludovico Ariosto and Giovanni Boccaccio
In the middle - Dante, Homer and Virgil
I don’t see that the sketch was literally reproduced in the fresco, perhaps there are two muses that might be inspired by the sketch, one with the mask and the other is Euterpe, she is looking upward.
Raphael is published with permission from the Web Gallery of Art
Further Reading:
Hypatia of Alexandria and the End of Reason
How to Choose a College
Michelangelo’s Muse Tommaso de’ Cavalieri
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