Sabines Crossing the River Tiber to Attend the Roman Games

Polidoro da Caravaggio · n.d.

Medium

Pen and brown ink, with brush and brown wash, heightened with white gouache, on blue laid paper edge mounted to ivory laid paper, laid down on blue laid paper

Original size

13.3 × 45 cm (5 1/4 × 17 3/4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Baroque

This sweeping, frieze-like drawing captures a procession of Sabine women crossing the Tiber with the monumental calm of an ancient Roman relief come to life. Polidoro da Caravaggio trained under Raphael in the Vatican Logge, absorbing a deep fluency in classical figuration before forging a style entirely his own. He became celebrated in Rome for grisaille façade paintings — monochrome murals that mimicked carved marble friezes — and this drawing reflects that same sculptural sensibility: layered figures, controlled rhythm, bodies that feel carved rather than sketched. The combination of pen line, brown wash, and white gouache heightening on blue paper was a favoured technique among Mannerist draughtsmen, allowing artists to suggest volume and atmosphere with striking economy. Polidoro's Roman career was cut short by the catastrophic Sack of Rome in 1527, which scattered his painted façades and dispersed his influence across Italy; much of what survives of his work exists only in drawings and copies. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates the drama and compositional weight of this exceptional sheet into an enduring format — preserving the sweep of the original while bringing it to life with the warmth and texture that only oil paint can offer.