Cybele Stepping on a Serpent

Follower of Paolo Farinato · n.d.

Medium

Pen and brown ink with brush and brown wash, heightened with cream gouache, on blue laid paper, laid down on cream wove card

Original size

26.4 × 16.1 cm (10 7/16 × 6 3/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Mannerism

This intimate drawing captures Cybele, the ancient mother goddess, in a moment of quiet authority — her foot pressed upon a serpent as an emblem of her dominion over the earth's untamed forces. Paolo Farinato was a leading figure of the Veronese Mannerist tradition, celebrated for his fluid draughtsmanship and dramatic figural energy. This work, attributed to a close follower, demonstrates how thoroughly his approach was absorbed by those around him: the layered pen-and-wash technique, building form through hatched ink lines and translucent brown washes, is unmistakably in his orbit. The use of blue laid paper as a mid-tone, then drawing light back into the composition with cream gouache highlights, is a characteristic feature of the late Mannerist drawing tradition — a method that lends the figure a sculptural, almost relief-like presence. Farinato's workshop produced numerous mythological and religious drawings that circulated widely among collectors, making attributional distinctions between master and follower a longstanding challenge for scholars. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates the delicate tonal interplay of the original — ink, wash, and gouache working together — into the richer, lasting medium of oil on canvas, preserving both the goddess's commanding stillness and the drawing's characteristic warmth.