Drawing of a satyr, a girl and goats 1650

Claude Lorrain made this drawing of a satyr, a girl and goats, at an unknown date using pen and brown wash on paper. Classical imagery was a common visual language in seventeenth-century Europe, especially in academic settings and aristocratic circles. Satyrs, creatures of the forest, were stock figures in a symbolic vocabulary derived from ancient Greece and Rome. The rediscovery of classical texts and art influenced social practices, from education to politics, and the period saw the creation of institutions such as museums and academies that helped shape artistic production. Drawings like this, and landscape paintings for which Claude Lorrain is better known, appealed to educated collectors who valued the social prestige associated with classical knowledge. The British Museum, where this drawing is held, is itself a product of these same historical forces and attitudes. Art historians look at drawings like this alongside other social and cultural documents to explore how the visual language of art participates in the power dynamics of its time.