Apollo and Studies of the Artist's Own Hand [recto] 1730 - 1732

Francesco Fontebasso created this drawing in 18th-century Venice, using pen and brown ink with a pencil underdrawing on paper. We see the god Apollo on the left-hand side, but what strikes me most are the studies of the artist’s own hand on the right. Venice was then a city of guilds, and its artists were strongly committed to the guild system. Art academies were becoming more popular at this time, but were still seen by many as a threat to the traditional workshop model. Guilds controlled the means of artistic production. They dictated who could be an artist, how they would be trained, and what kinds of artworks they could produce. This drawing encapsulates the value placed on practice, technique, and the perfection of manual skills in the guild environment. To understand this work better, one could research the guild system in Venice and the kinds of training that apprentices would have received. Such research helps us to appreciate that this drawing isn’t just a depiction of Apollo, but a statement about the artist’s own identity and place in the Venetian art world.