Rib Cages
Battista Franco · early 1540s · Cleveland Museum of Art
Guide
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From the museum
Michelangelo was among the first artists in Europe to attend a human dissection and to adopt anatomical knowledge as a necessity for depicting the human figure. These drawings by Battista Franco reflect the increased—and slightly macabre—interest in the interior workings of the human body inspired in part by Michelangelo’s example. Here, the groupings of rib cages, though rendered accurately, are placed into decorative piles. The odd assembly vacillates between scientific study and a symbolic memento mori, or reminder of death.
The museum’s own description, in English. Licence: CC0
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Details
- Maker
- Battista Franco (Italian, c. 1510–1561)
- Date
- early 1540s
- Medium
- pen and brown ink
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 11.6 x 23.8 cm (4 9/16 x 9 3/8 in.); Secondary Support: 11.6 x 23.8 cm (4 9/16 x 9 3/8 in.)
- Place of origin
- Italy
- Held by
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland · Not on view
- Credit line
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Claude Cassirer
Image: Cleveland Museum of Art, CC0
