A Young Man (c. 1700): Art, History and Details

A Young Man (c. 1700) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Orazio Marinali (Italian, 1643–1720).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

During the late 1600s, Marinali produced several groups of profiles in low relief to decorate palaces in Venice. Traces of mortar appear on the back of this work, suggesting that it was once installed in masonry. Originally, the profiles would have been framed, probably with wood, and installed as part of a secular architectural decoration in a series, perhaps in a garden or on an entrance portal. These profile heads typically portrayed either virtuous male figures or anonymous studies of facial types. Starting in the Renaissance, many wealthy Italians built collections that combined antiquities with contemporary paintings and sculpture. Marinali's work played on this interest by juxtaposing a type of profile found on ancient and Renaissance coins and medals with a contemporary interest in physiognomy and the representation of affect and temperament.

Object facts

• Title: A Young Man
• Date: c. 1700
• Creator attribution: Orazio Marinali (Italian, 1643–1720)
• Culture: Italy, early 18th Century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: marble
• Dimensions: Overall: 26.5 x 20.6 x 5.1 cm (10 7/16 x 8 1/8 x 2 in.)
• Collection: Sculpture
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1991.75

Collection credit

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.