The Apotheosis of Romulus: Design for a Ceiling (c. 1675–76): Art, History and Details

The Apotheosis of Romulus: Design for a Ceiling (c. 1675–76) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Domenico Maria Canuti (Italian, 1625–1684).

The work and its context

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

Domenico Maria Canuti made this design for a quadratura ceiling fresco in preparation for a commission at the Palazzo Altieri in Rome. Quadratura describes painting in which architectural elements are painted to appear to be part of the real architectural setting. Canuti focused on establishing the visual coherence between the figures, portraying the deification of Rome’s founder, and the painted architecture by drawing perspective lines at 90-degree and 45-degree angles. The perfectly rendered 24-point stars at the edge of the painted architecture were emblems of the Altieri family.

Object facts

• Title: The Apotheosis of Romulus: Design for a Ceiling
• Date: c. 1675–76
• Creator attribution: Domenico Maria Canuti (Italian, 1625–1684)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: Black chalk, pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, heightened with white, with perspectival indications
• Dimensions: Sheet: 24 x 37.7 cm (9 7/16 x 14 13/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - Italian
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2017.104

Collection credit

Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Peters, Emily J. and Wehn, James. “Acquisition Highlights: Drawings.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 58, no. 2 (March/April 2018): 12-13.

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.