Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Scene of Sorcery

Hubert François Gravelot
1699-1773

Scene of Sorcery

ca. 1770
7 x 5 1/8 inches (177 x 130 mm)
Pen and black ink, with touches of black and white chalk, on paper; lightly incised with the stylus.
1968.15:40

Gift of John F. Fleming.

Notes
Gravelot's design is preparatory for an engraved frontispiece to the “Satyrae” in a 1770 English edition of Horace's works (“Opera of Horace”, Birmingham : John Baskerville, 1770; p. 187). The sketch illustrates a scene from Book I, 8th Satire, verses 23-50, in which the witches Canidia and Sagana summon the spirits of the dead by pouring the blood of a black lamb into a trench in front of a statue of Priapus. The figure of Priapus is shown holding a scythe, and two small additional figures kneel in an attitude of prayer at right.
Associated names
Fourquevaux, Joseph de Beccarie de Pavie, marquis de, 1762-1841, former owner.
Bocher, Emmanuel, 1835-1919, former owner.
Olry-Roederer, Léon, 1869-1932, former owner.
Rosenbach, A. S. W. (Abraham Simon Wolf), 1876-1952, former owner.
Fleming, John F. (John Francis), 1910-1987, former owner.
Bibliography
Kraemer, Ruth S. "Drawings by Gravelot in the Morgan Library." Master drawings, XX (Spring 1982), p. 12, no. 38; reproduced plate 12.
Classification
Century Drawings
School
Department