The poet Arion

Giovanni Maria Morandi first trained in Florence with Giovanni Bilivert and then moved to Rome, a contemporary of Carlo Maratti and Giuseppe Passeri. A successful painter of religious altarpieces, his style combines elements of the Florentine and Roman baroque. Many of his drawings are known and are often executed in red chalk, red wash and white heightening. Particularly close in style and technique to the present sheet is, for example, the drawing with Borea abducting Oreithya in Dusseldorf (inv. KA (FP) 4002; see E. Schleier, ‘Disegni di Giovanni Maria Morandi nelle collezioni pubbliche tedesche’, Antichità Viva, XXXI, 3, 1992, p. 23, ill.). Not many paintings of mythological subjects by Morandi survive, but these drawings were probably studies for fresco decorations in Rome. According to Herodotus, Arion was traveling home, after having won a musical competition in Sicily, when he was attacked by sailors who wanted to kill him and steal the rich prizes he was carrying home. Arion was given the opportunity to sing a last song and his beautiful music attracted many dolphins who carried him ashore, saving his life.