Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Italian, 1598–1680) Drawing in red chalk,
background tinted with an almost imperceptible pale brown wash,
framing lines in pen and brown ink (recto); black chalk (verso)
14 5/16 x 9 5/8 in. (36.4 x 24.5 cm) Annotated in pen and brown
ink at lower right of recto: G. L. Bernini; at upper center of
verso: Lorenzo Bernini Harry G. Sperling Fund, 1973 (1973.265)
This rough and hasty sketch effectively depicts the sea deity
Triton as he rises from the sea and raises the huge shell to his
lips. The moment depicted could be that described by Ovid in the
Metamorphoses when, after the great flood, Neptune summoned
Triton from the depths to sound his horn and make the waters
retreat. The sketch corresponds closely to the finished fountain
in Piazza Barberini in Rome, where water gushes forth from the
conch shell and spills down into the shell-shaped basin in which
the Triton sits, raised aloft by intertwined dolphins.