Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.
Allegorical Figure
Bernardo Strozzi (Italian, 1581?-1644)
c. 1636
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Framed: 178.5 x 133.5 x 12 cm (70 1/4 x 52 9/16 x 4 3/4 in.); Unframed: 145.8 x 99.8 cm (57 3/8 x 39 5/16 in.)
- Culture
- Italy
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Gift of the Friends of The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
During the 1630s, the Genoese artist Bernardo Strozzi painted a number of female figures representing various intellectual and artistic pursuits, reflecting the appeal of such allegories among learned patrons in northern Italy. Recent scholarship has convincingly identified the subject of this painting as Minerva. The Roman goddess of war has put aside her armor for more contemplative pursuits; her upward gaze—as if seeking inspiration—recalls her other associations with wisdom, eloquence, and the arts.
