Ulysses Before Troy

Artist Pellegrino Tibaldi (Italian, 1527 - 1596)

Formerly attributed to Pordenone (Italian, ca. 1483/1484 - 1539)

Dateca. 1550

MediumBrown ink and wash over black chalk, heightened with white, on light brown paper

DimensionsOverall: 8 7/16 × 11 1/16 inches (21.43 × 28.09 cm)
Framed: 17 × 21 × 1 1/4 inches (43.18 × 53.34 × 3.18 cm)

Credit LineGift of the Newhouse Galleries

Object number33-63

On View

Not on view

Collections

European Art

Terms

Exhibition History

Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Washington University Gallery of Art, Saint Louis, MO, September 22-December 3, 1989, unnumbered, as Ulysses before Troy.

Master Drawings from the Permanent Collection, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 17-March 25, 1990, no cat., as Ulysses before Troy.

Master Drawings from Polish Collections, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 17-June 6, 1993. NAMA addition.

Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, June 23-August 18, 1996; The Cummer Museum and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL, September 20-November 29, 1996; The Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, December 21, 1996-March 2, 1997, no. 8, as Ulysses before Troy.

Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Permanent Collection, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, July 12-September 6, 1998, no cat., as Ulysses before Troy.

Mythological Subjects, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, June 12-December 15, 2013, no cat., as Ulysses before Troy.

Gallery Label

The swaggering figure of the Greek hero Ulysses is shown brandishing his sword as he enters the fallen city of Troy, captured by the Greeks through the deception of the Wooden Horse. In the background to the right the Trojan hero Aeneas is shown carrying his father Anchises on his back as they make their escape from the city. (Compare with the print by Büsinck exhibited nearby.) The abrupt contrast between the figure of Ulysses and the steep perspective of the street is typical of the so-called Mannerist style of the mid-16th century, when bizarre and unexpected effects were much sought after.

Provenance

Given by Newhouse Galleries, New York, to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1933.

Published References

Christine Baltay, “Pellegrino Tibaldi in Bologna and the Marches,” (Ph.D diss., New York University, 1985), 38, 57n44, 212, (repro.), as Aeneas Fleeing from Troy.

Roger Ward and Mark S. Weil, Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, exh. cat. (St. Louis, MO: Washington University Gallery of Art, 1989), 7, 10, 18, (repro.), as Ulysses before Troy.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 153, (repro.), as Ulysses before Troy.

Roger Ward, Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 11, 51, 54-56, 72, (repro.), as Ulysses before Troy.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 62, (repro.), as Ulysses before Troy.

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