Two Drawings of Ships (verso) (1410s): Art, History and Details

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

The work and its context

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

Once attributed to the Italian painter Giotto (about 1267-1337), this drawing is the oldest sheet in the Cleveland museum's collection. We now know it to be a copy by Parri Spinelli after a mosaic Giotto designed for the portico of the church of Old St. Peter's in Rome.

Object facts

• Title: Two Drawings of Ships (verso)
• Date: 1410s
• Creator attribution: Parri Spinelli (Italian, 1387–c. 1453)
• 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.b

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

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.