Twenty Drawings Depicting the Early Life of Taddeo Zuccaro

Federico Zuccaro

about 1595

Pen and brown ink and brown wash over black chalk, Pen, Ink, Wash

J. Paul Getty Museum

A group of figures are depicted in an interior scene, with some engaged in activities around a table and others seated. The drawing includes architectural elements and various objects. In this series of twenty drawings, Federico Zuccaro illustrated the early life of his older brother Taddeo Zuccaro, from the hardships of his early training in Rome until his first artistic triumph at the age of eighteen. In addition to the sixteen scenes from Taddeo's life, the series includes four drawings of allegorical Virtues flanking the Zuccaro emblem. The drawings vividly convey a sense of the artist's material and intellectual life in Renaissance Rome. Details of studio practice join depictions of precise locations, monuments, and antiquities and references to the great artistic personalities of the Renaissance, including M