Navicella (recto); Two Drawings of Ships (verso) (c. 1410s): Art, History and Details

Navicella (recto); Two Drawings of Ships (verso) (c. 1410s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Parri Spinelli (Italian, 1387–c. 1453); Giotto (Italian, 1266–1337).

The work and its context

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

Copying works of art in their original locations—for practice with composition or to record another’s ideas—was one of the main functions of drawing before 1450. In this example, Parri Spinelli used a quill pen and ink on a large sheet of paper to copy the composition of a monumental mosaic that adorned the portico of Old Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome (since destroyed). In this scene from the Bible, Christ walks on water at right, while Saint Peter kneels before him in front of a ship filled with Christ’s disciples. Spinelli focused on the outlines of the figures, using a limited vocabulary of parallel and perpendicular lines to suggest shallow depth and shadow. Paper was rarely wasted. On the other side of the sheet, Spinelli continued the copy, rendering two large ships and two rowing boats full of people.

Object facts

• Title: Navicella (recto); Two Drawings of Ships (verso)
• Date: c. 1410s
• Creator attribution: Parri Spinelli (Italian, 1387–c. 1453); Giotto (Italian, 1266–1337)
• Culture: Italy, Arezzo, 15th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: pen and brown ink (iron gall)
• Dimensions: Sheet: 27.2 x 37.2 cm (10 11/16 x 14 5/8 in.); Secondary Support: 32.8 x 42.8 cm (12 15/16 x 16 7/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - Italian
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1961.38

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Recent Acquisitions Press Release,” July 20, 1961, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• “Annual Report for 1960.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 48, no. 6 (November 1961): 107–147.
• Schmitt, Annegrit, Bernhard Degenhart, and Giuseppe Fiocco. Disegni del Pisanello e di maestri del suo tempo. Venezia: N. Pozza, 1966.

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.