spanishbaroqueart: Jusepe de Ribera The Poet (Etching,...

spanishbaroqueart:

Jusepe de Ribera

The Poet (Etching, 1620-21)

Metropolitan Museum of Art:

“Dressed in voluminous robes, crowned with laurel, and leaning on a stone with head in hand, Ribera’s poet is one of the most striking images of the artist’s early career. The iconography, a synthesis of the attributes of Melancholy and Poetry, has been explored in detail by scholars. An alternative suggestion that the poet is Virgil seems a viable one, especially since his tomb was traditionally thought to be in Naples.”