Aeneas and His Companions Preparing Animals for Sacrifice

Avanzino Nucci · n.d.

Medium

Pen and brown ink with brush and brown wash, heightened with white gouache, over traces of black chalk, on blue brown paper, pieced and laid down on cream wove paper

Original size

21.3 × 45.8 cm (8 7/16 × 18 1/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Mannerism

A dramatic preparatory drawing, this work captures the charged stillness of a classical rite — figures gathered in purposeful arrangement, light and shadow built up with rare delicacy on toned paper. Avanzino Nucci was a Florentine Mannerist active in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, known primarily for large-scale fresco cycles in Roman churches. His draughtsmanship reflects the disciplined elegance of the Florentine tradition: here he works in pen and brown ink with brown wash, then lifts forms into relief using white gouache heightening — a technique that gives the composition an almost sculptural presence against the blue-brown ground. The pieced paper support suggests this was a working study, assembled and adjusted as the composition evolved, offering a rare glimpse into the artist's process rather than a finished presentation piece. The drawing is held in the Art Institute of Chicago's collection, part of a body of preparatory works that document Nucci's careful planning of complex multi-figure scenes rooted in antique subject matter. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates Nucci's subtle tonal range and expressive linework into a medium that honours the weight and atmosphere of the original, bringing this quietly powerful study into your home as a lasting work of art.