Dante, Beatrice, Empress Constance, Clarissa Piccarda, Romeo de Villanova, Emperor Justinian (Study for the Dante Room at the Casino Massimo, Rome)

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Dante, Beatrice, Empress Constance, Clarissa Piccarda, Romeo de Villanova, Emperor Justinian (Study for the Dante Room at the Casino Massimo, Rome)

c. 1818–20

Philipp Veit

(German, 1793–1877)

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Culture

Italy

Medium

graphite and beige wash, heightened with gold powder on paper

Measurements

Sheet: 19.6 x 38.5 cm (7 11/16 x 15 3/16 in.)

Credit Line

The Charlotte Ekker and Charlotte Van der Veer Memorial Fund 2026.17.2

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Location

Not on view

Did You Know?

Philipp Veit referred to the fresco to which these drawings relate as “the mystic rose” for its centralized composition.

Description

Philipp Veit was a member of the Nazarenes, a group of young German artists who came together in 1809 to create art inspired by the early Renaissance and religious themes in reaction to academic training during their time. This drawing relates to one of the Nazarenes’s most significant mural projects, a series of frescoes for Rome’s Casino Massimo. Commissioned in 1817 by Carlo Massimo, an important patron of the arts, the paintings featured designs inspired by the work of Dante, Tasso, Ariosto, and Petrarch. Veit began planning the decoration of the room dedicated to Dante’s Divine Comedy in 1818, and this sheet relates to his designs for Paradise. Its friezelike format, combined with the design’s flattened composition, recalls medieval illuminated manuscripts favored by the Nazarenes.