A giovani studiosi del Disegno, 1705 – 1710
etching

Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, Roma, deposito dall’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei

This is French etcher Nicolas Dorigny’s version of a well-known drawing which painter Carlo Maratti made for the Marchese del Carpio around 1680, in which he illustrated his ‘ideal academy’. Those who wish to devote themselves to drawing, reads the cartouche, are advised an “adequate” study of anatomy, geometry, and perspective, whereas drawing from ancient statuary (the neglected pieces in the background) is “never enough”. This brief manifesto by Maratti in fact anticipates the tendency whereby greater value was attached to drawing classically-inspired body-statues and drapes rather than the anatomical body from life.