Gloria (1535 or 1536): Art, History and Details

Gloria (1535 or 1536) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Domenico del Barbiere (Italian, c. 1506–c. 1571); Rosso Fiorentino (Italian, 1494–1540).

The work and its context

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

This print is based on a drawing that Rosso Fiorentino made as part of a design for a fresco in François I’s chateau at Fontainebleau in France. A personified Gloria (or Fame) holds a trumpet in each hand, a symbol of victory, while standing atop a globe, signifying dominance over time and death. Although a clear inspiration, the powerful muscular and sculptural quality of Michelangelo’s nudes are in this figure transformed into a distorted, excessively elongated torso. Such a body was not the result of drawing from a live model but instead derived from the artist’s imagination.

Object facts

• Title: Gloria
• Date: 1535 or 1536
• Creator attribution: Domenico del Barbiere (Italian, c. 1506–c. 1571); Rosso Fiorentino (Italian, 1494–1540)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Sheet: 28.7 x 21.8 cm (11 5/16 x 8 9/16 in.); Secondary Support: 44.7 x 37.6 cm (17 5/8 x 14 13/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1988.106

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• “The Year in Review for 1988.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 76, no. 2 (February 1989): 30–75.

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.