Creative Commons License
Allegory of Arithmetic
(Baroque Europe )
The importance of the intellect was often celebrated in representations of the Seven Liberal Arts: Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music. They could be personified as poised young women in a setting and clothing suggestive of ancient Greece, the homeland of Western abstract thought. On the book held by Arithmetic is the name of the Greek mathematician Pythagoras, while on the worksheet are the primary mathematical functions: addition, subtraction, and multiplication.
La Hyre produced at least two such series--including the "Allegory of Grammar" (Walters 37.862)--as decoration for the homes of the wealthy. He conveys this classical theme with the cool, rounded, carefully balanced forms of the new idealized style inspired by Raphael and Greco-Roman sculpture.
Provenance
Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.
Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome [no. 820]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
Geographies
France, Paris (Place of Origin)
Measurements
40 13/16 x 44 1/8 in. (103.6 x 112 cm)
Credit Line
Acquired by Henry Walters with the Massarenti Collection, 1902
Location in Museum
Not on view
Accession Number
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
37.1917