Olympias, Mother of Alexander, Visited by Zeus in the Guise of a Serpent

Prints and Drawings

1595/99

Attributed to Andrea Boscoli
Italian, c. 1560-1608

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Artist: Andrea Boscoli
Title: Olympias, Mother of Alexander, Visited by Zeus in the Guise of a Serpent
Origin: Italy
Date: 1595–1599
Medium: Pen and brown ink, with brush and grayish-green wash, on ivory laid paper, laid down on cream laid paper
Inscriptions: Inscribed recto, lower left near center, in pen and brown ink: "Polidorus"; recto, lower right on mount, in pen and brown ink: "Polidoro da Carav[gio]"
Dimensions: 110 × 167 mm
Credit Line: The Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection
Reference Number: 1922.619

Harold Joachim and Suzanne Folds McCullagh, Italian Drawings of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries (Chicago and London, 1979), pp. 25-26, no. 1D7 (as Polidoro Caldara [da Caravaggio][?]).
Suzanne Folds McCullagh and Laura M. Giles, Italian Drawings before 1600 in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection (Chicago, 1997), p. 43, no. 46 (ill.).

Peter Lely [stamp (Lugt 2092), recto, lower right, in black]. Sold, Puttick & Simpson, London, Aug. 6-7, 1914, to William F. E. Gurley (1854–1943), Chicago [stamp (Lugt 5308), recto, lower left, in black]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago for the Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection, 1922.

McCullagh & Giles 46

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