# Allegory of the Five Senses [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [PAOLINI, Pietro]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 125 x 173 cm ## Commentary Allegory of the Five Senses c. 1630 Oil on canvas, 125 x 173 cm Walters Art Museum, Baltimore At first glace, this is simply a scene in a darkened inn frequented by the poor and down-and-out. Embedding a classical allegory \(a symbolic image\) in such a subject makes it especially intriguing. Each person acts out one of the five senses: sound is represented by the woman with a lute, at center; taste, by the man emptying a flask of wine; smell, by the young man with a melon; sight, by the man on the right holding a pair of spectacles; and touch, by the two people who are fighting. Paolini's allegory dates from his early years in Rome, where he studied the paintings of Caravaggio \(1571-1610\), known for their realism and strong chiaroscuro \(modeling in light and shade\). ## Related artworks - [Allegory of Life and Death]() - [Bagpiper]() - [Intercession of Esther with King Ahasuerus and Haman]() - [The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine of Alexandria]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()