The J. Paul Getty Museum

Boy with a Dragon

Object Details

Title:

Boy with a Dragon

Artists/Makers:

Pietro Bernini (Italian, 1562 - 1629)

and Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Italian, 1598 - 1680)

Culture:

Italian

Place:

Rome, Lazio, Italy (Place Created)

Date:

about 1617

Medium:

Marble

Object Number:

87.SA.42

Dimensions:

55.9 × 52 × 41.5 cm, 19.2325 kg (22 × 20 1/2 × 16 5/16 in., 42.4 lb.)

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Object Description

Pietro Bernini and his gifted son Gian Lorenzo carved this marble boy with a dragon for the palace of Maffeo Barberini, later Pope Urban VIII. Hercules, who demonstrated his divine strength even as an infant by slaying poisonous serpents, appears here as a mischievous boy who smiles, sits on the dragon, and breaks its jaw with his bare hands. Common in Hellenistic statuary, the theme of Hercules and the serpent was revived in sculpture of the early 1600s.

This work was presented as a diplomatic gift by Cardinal Carlo Barberini, grandnephew of Pope Urban VIII, to King Philip V of Spain when he entered Naples in 1702.

Provenance
Provenance
about 1617

Commissioned by Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, later Pope Urban VIII, 1568 - 1644 (Palazzo Barberini, via dei Giubbonari, Rome), given to his brother, Don Carlo Barberini.

before 1628 - 1644

Don Carlo Barberini, 1562 - 1630 (Palazzo Barberini, via dei Giubbonari, Rome), by descent to his grandnephew, Cardinal Carlo Barberini, 1628.

by 1628 - 1702

Cardinal Carlo Barberini, 1630 - 1704, given as gift to Philip V, king of Spain, 1702.

after 1702

King Philip V of Spain, 1683 - 1746

- 1905

Private Collection [sold, Galerie Sempe, Nice, 1905, to Baron Michele Lazzaroni.]

1905 - 1934

Baron Michele Lazzaroni, 1863 - 1934 (Paris, France), by descent to his heirs, 1934.

1934 - 1955

Heirs of Baron Michele Lazzaroni, 1863 - 1934, sold to Francesco Romano, 1955.

1955 - 1966

Francesco Romano, Italian (Florence, Italy), sold to Irving and Marilyn Lavin, 1966.

1966 - 1987

Irving Lavin, 1927 - 2019 (Princeton, New Jersey) and Marilyn Lavin (Princeton, New Jersey), sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1987.

Exhibitions
Exhibitions
Bernini scultore e pittore (October 31, 2017 to February 20, 2018)
  • Museo e Galleria Borghese (Rome), October 31, 2017 to February 20, 2018
Motion & Emotion. The Birth of Roman Baroque in the Age of Caravaggio and Bernini (October 15, 2019 to September 13, 2020)
  • Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna), October 15, 2019 to January 19, 2020
  • Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam), February 14 to September 13, 2020
Bibliography
Bibliography

Biandini, F. Descrizione della solenne legazione del Cardinale Carlo Barberini a Filippo V[...]. P.E. Visconti, ed. (1703; repr., Rome, 1858), p. 81.

Bulifon, A. Giornale del viaggio d'Italia dell'invittissimo e gloriosissimo monarca Filippo V, Re delle Spagne e di Napoli etc.[...] (Naples: Bulifon, 1703), p. 171.

Sirén, Osvald. Nicodemus Tessin D. Y.: Studieresor i Danmark, Tyskland, Holland, Frankrike och Italien; Anteckningar, bref och ritningar (Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt, 1914), p. 168.

Pollak, O. Die Kunsttätigkeit unter Urban VIII (Vienna: Filser, 1928-31), vol. 1, p. 334, no. 960.

Nava Cellini, A. "Un'opera di Pietro Bernini." Arte antica e moderna 13 (January- March 1961), pp. 288-90, pls. 130A-B, 131A.

Fagiolo dell'Arco, Maurizio, and Marcello Fagiolo dell'Arco. Bernini: Una introduzione al gran teatro del barocco (Rome: Bulzoni, 1967), no. 3.

Schlegel, U. "Zum Oeuvre des jungen Gian Lorenzo Bernini." Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 9 (1967), pp. 274-94, pls. 1, 4.

"A Great Discovery: Bernini's Work at the Age of 13." Life Magazine (January 20, 1967), pp. 69, 74.

Lavin, I. "Five New Youthful Sculptures by Gianlorenzo Bernini, and a Revised Chronology of His Early Works." Art Bulletin 50 (September 1968), pp. 229-32, pls. 16-19.

Brandi, C. L'attività giovanile di Gianlorenzo Bernini (Rome: Università degli Studi di Roma, 1969), pp. 20-22.

Fagiolo dell'Arco, M. "Gian Lorenzo Bernini." Storia dell'arte 1-2 (1969), pp. 195-200.

Kauffman, H. Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini (Berlin, 1970), IIFF., p. 44.

Pope-Hennessy, John. Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture (London and New York: Phaidon, 1970), p. 425.

Lavin, Marilyn Aronberg. Seventeenth-Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art (New York: New York University Press, 1975), p. 79, no. 120; p. 118, no. 120; p. 134, no. 110; p. 445, no. 454.

Raggio, O. "A New Bacchic Group by Bernini." Apollo 108 (December 1978), pp. 406, 411, 413, pls. 3, 13, 16.

Fagiolo dell'Arco, M., and A. Cipriani. Bernini (Florence: Scala; Rome: De Luca, 1981), p. 44, pl. 2.

Wittkower, R. Gian Lorenzo Bernini: The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque, 3rd. ed. (Oxford: Phaidon, 1981), p. 268, no. 81, p. 277, no. 81.

Nava Cellini, A. La scultura del seicento (Turin: UTET, 1982), p. 30.

"Acquisitions/1987." The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 16 (1988), pp. 184-85, no. 85.

Bacchi, Andrea, ed. Sculture dal XV al XIX secolo della collezione di Federico Zeri, exh. cat. (Milan: Museo Poldi Pezzoli; Bergamo: Accademia Carrera, 1989), p. 30.

The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 3rd ed. (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1991), p. 211, ill.

Bacchi, Andrea, ed. Scultura del'600 a Roma (Milan: Longanesi, 1996), p. 777, pl. 86.

The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 4th ed. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997), p. 254, ill.

Walsh, John, and Deborah Gribbon. The J. Paul Getty Museum and Its Collections: A Museum for the New Century (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997), p. 196.

Fusco, Peter. Summary Catalogue of European Sculpture in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997), p. 4, ill.

Avery, Charles. Bernini: Genius of the Baroque (London: Thames and Hudson, 1997), pp. 20-24.

Fusco, Peter, Peggy Anne Fogelman, and Marietta Cambareri. Masterpieces of the J. Paul Getty Museum: European Sculpture (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1998), pp. 52-55, no. 16, ill., entry by Peter Fusco.

Coliva, Anna, and Sebastian Schütze, eds. Bernini scultore: La nascita del barocco in Casa Borghese, exh. cat. (Rome: Villa Borghese, with Edizioni De Luca, 1998), pp. 83-84, 100-1, fig. 1.

Marder, T.A. Bernini and the Art of Architecture (New York, London, and Paris, 1998), pp. 84-85.

Bernardini, Maria Grazia, and Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco. Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Regista del barocco, exh. cat. (Rome: Palazzo Venezia, with Skira, 1999), pp. 67, 72, entry by Andrea Bacchi.

The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 6th ed. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2001), p. 254, ill.

Fagiolo dell'Arco, M. L'immagine al potere: Vita di Giovan Lorenzo Bernini (Rome: Ed. Laterza, 2001), pp. 28, 303, pl. 28.

Fogelman, Peggy, and Peter Fusco, with Marietta Cambareri. Italian and Spanish Sculpture: Catalogue of the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2002), pp. 162-69, no. 21, entry by Peter Fusco.

The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 7th ed. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007), p. 204, ill.

Lavin, Marilyn Aronberg. "Adventures in the Barberini Archives." In I Barberini e la cultura europea del seicento: atti del convegno internazionale, Palazzo Barberini alle Quattro Fontane, 7-11 dicembre 2004. Lorenza Mochi Onori, Sebastian Schütze, and Francesco Solinas, eds. (Rome: De Luca Editori d'Arte, 2007), pp. 663-65, figs. 10-11.

Pierguidi, Stefano. "Bellori e i putti nella scultura del Seicento." In Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 39 (2012), pp. 159-60, fig. 3.

The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 8th ed. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2015), p. 247, ill.

Bacchi, Andrea, and Anna Coliva, eds. Bernini, exh. cat. (Rome: Galleria Borghese with Officina Libraria, 2017), pp. 68-71, no. II.2; p. 72, under no. II.3, entries by Stefano Pierguidi.

Pierguidi, Stefano. "La Nascita di un Genere: I Putti." In Bernini, exh. cat. Andrea Bacchi and Anna Coliva, eds. (Rome: Galleria Borghese with Officina Libraria, 2017), pp. 56-57, 60.

Brunetti, Vittoria. "Bernini: Amici e Committenti. Repertorio." In Bernini, exh. cat. Andrea Bacchi and Anna Coliva, eds. (Rome: Galleria Borghese with Officina Libraria, 2017), p. 406 (Italian); p. 407 (English).

Swoboda, Gudrun, and Stefan Weppelmann, eds. Caravaggio & Bernini: Early Baroque in Rome, exh. cat. (Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum with Hannibal Publishing, 2019), pp. 266-67, 298, 322, no. 77, entry by Frits Scholten.

Weppelmann, Stefan. "Rome: New and old 'navel of the world.'" In Caravaggio & Bernini: Early Baroque in Rome, exh. cat. Gudrun Swoboda and Stefan Weppelmann, eds. (Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum with Hannibal Publishing, 2019), p. 10.

Education Resources
Education Resources

Education Resource

Subjects

Grades

Format

Sculpting a Modern Hero

Lesson plan in which students discuss attributes depicted in a sculpture of Herakles and create their own sculptures of modern-day heroes.

Visual Arts; English–Language Arts; History–Social Science

6-8

Three/Five-Part Lesson