Nymph and Satyr n.d.

Ciro Ferri made this sketch, Nymph and Satyr, with graphite on cream laid paper in seventeenth-century Italy. In this period, academies of art played a crucial role in shaping artistic careers and establishing standards of taste. Ferri, as a student of Pietro da Cortona, would have been trained in the dominant Baroque style. The sketch is an example of the kind of preparatory studies that were essential to academic practice. We can imagine this sketch as part of Ferri's larger process of learning and preparation. He probably made it in anticipation of larger, more finished works. The mythological subject matter reflects the classical ideals promoted within the academy, but Ferri's drawing has a freedom that departs from academic rigidity. To fully understand the drawing, it would be worth researching the pedagogical methods of the time and the place of drawing in academic training. By exploring the social and institutional context of Ferri’s work, we can gain insights into the world of artistic production in seventeenth-century Italy.