The Suicide of Lucretia
| Reference: | S5894 |
| Author | Hans Sebald BEHAM |
| Year: | 1519 |
| Measures: | 45 x 55 mm |
€750.00
| Reference: | S5894 |
| Author | Hans Sebald BEHAM |
| Year: | 1519 |
| Measures: | 45 x 55 mm |
€750.00
Description
Lucretia full-length nude, seated in frontal view with head in profile to left. She leans on a tree trunk with her right hand and holds dagger to her chest with her left; in background at right ruined buildings.
Engraving, 1519, signed with monogram at lower right and dated on tablet at upper right. Example in the second state described by Hollstein.
Lucretia, the young Roman matron who committed suicide after being raped by Sextus Tarquinius, son of the last king of Rome. Lucretia's rape and suicide have been the subject, over the centuries, of interest to many painters, and not just writers and musicians. Each of them recounted her differently, according to the sources they drew on and the value aspects they wanted to emphasize. For some she was the heroine whose exemplary qualities to be exalted and imitated, for others a myth to be demolished or the woman victim, not only of one of rape but also of a patriarchal cultural vision. Her story is not just any legend, but rather a "myth" because it represents a tale in which an entire culture has for centuries recognized certain foundational contents of its identity. This mythical dimension explains why the story of Lucretia has spanned the centuries and inspired, not only writers, musicians and painters, but has also been chosen to depict the chests of wealthy brides.
The story of Lucretia dates back to 509 B.C., but its earliest mention in literature is in Cicero's De Repubblica, which uses her story to extol the values of the Roman Republic, placing at its center the indignity suffered by a family and a people for the rape of one of its matrons. He drew on these early narratives about Lucretia by the historian Titus Livius, who included her in the heritage of great exempla for inspiration. In his Annali o Ab Urbe condita, written between 30 B.C. and his death, he recounts all the details of the affair in a dramatic, almost theatrical way. His version influenced many authors from the Republican age to Late Antiquity and later centuries.
Shortly before 1520, some young artists in Albercht Dürer's circle took to making very small engravings that challenged the viewer with a miniature world of new secular subject matter and unconventional interpretations of traditional themes. Because of the small size of their engravings, these artists have long been affixed with the collective, and unflattering, name of Small Nuremberg Masters. The core of the group consists of three artists from Nuremberg, Hans Sebald & Bartel Beham and Georg Pencz, and in addition Jacob Bink from Cologne and Heinrich Aldegrever from Soest.
Good impression, printed on contemporary laid paper, trimmed to the borderline, in good condition.
Bibliografia
Pauli 1901-11, Hans Sebald Beham: Ein Kritisches Verzeichniss seiner Kupferstiche Radirungen und Holzschnitte (82.II); Hollstein, German engravings, etchings and woodcuts c.1400-1700 (82.II); Bartsch, Le Peintre graveur (VIII.147.78).
Hans Sebald BEHAM Nuremberg 1500 - Frankfurt 1550
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Engraver, etcher, designer of woodcuts and stained glass, painter and illustrator. In contemporary documents and prints he was nearly always identified as Sebald Beham although since the 17th century (Sandrart) and into the early years of the 20th he has mistakenly been called Hans Sebald Beham on the basis of his monogram: HSP or HSB. This reflects S[ebald] Peham/Beham with the P (Nuremberg pronunciation) changing to B c. 1531, when he appears to have moved to Frankfurt. Sandrart’s biography of him is illustrated with a printed portrait similar to Sebald’s painted Self-portrait in his David panel in the Louvre; around the Sandrart portrait is an inscription identifying him as painter and engraver. Only one of Sebald’s panel paintings has survived (the Story of David, 1534; Paris, Louvre), though documents cited by Hampe and Vogler refer to him as a journeyman for painting in 1521 and as having his own journeyman—i.e. running a workshop—in 1525. Sebald is best known to posterity, however, for his prints, of which he produced a prodigious quantity: approximately 252 engravings, 18 etchings and 1500 woodcuts, including woodcut book illustrations. Biographical information is scanty: Sandrart alleged that he was trained by Barthel and opened a tavern, the bad reputation of which derived from his own dissolute life. Unquestionably, however, he was industrious and meticulous artistically. He began producing prints in quantity in 1519, though a few date to before then: a woodcut of Lust from a series of the Ten Commandments—a youthfully naive work produced in 1512 when Sebald was 12—and a sheet of sometimes awkwardly drawn pen-and-ink studies of male and female heads on red prepared paper (1518; Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Mus.). His first engraving, dated 1518, is a diminutive Portrait of a Young Woman.
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Hans Sebald BEHAM Nuremberg 1500 - Frankfurt 1550
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Engraver, etcher, designer of woodcuts and stained glass, painter and illustrator. In contemporary documents and prints he was nearly always identified as Sebald Beham although since the 17th century (Sandrart) and into the early years of the 20th he has mistakenly been called Hans Sebald Beham on the basis of his monogram: HSP or HSB. This reflects S[ebald] Peham/Beham with the P (Nuremberg pronunciation) changing to B c. 1531, when he appears to have moved to Frankfurt. Sandrart’s biography of him is illustrated with a printed portrait similar to Sebald’s painted Self-portrait in his David panel in the Louvre; around the Sandrart portrait is an inscription identifying him as painter and engraver. Only one of Sebald’s panel paintings has survived (the Story of David, 1534; Paris, Louvre), though documents cited by Hampe and Vogler refer to him as a journeyman for painting in 1521 and as having his own journeyman—i.e. running a workshop—in 1525. Sebald is best known to posterity, however, for his prints, of which he produced a prodigious quantity: approximately 252 engravings, 18 etchings and 1500 woodcuts, including woodcut book illustrations. Biographical information is scanty: Sandrart alleged that he was trained by Barthel and opened a tavern, the bad reputation of which derived from his own dissolute life. Unquestionably, however, he was industrious and meticulous artistically. He began producing prints in quantity in 1519, though a few date to before then: a woodcut of Lust from a series of the Ten Commandments—a youthfully naive work produced in 1512 when Sebald was 12—and a sheet of sometimes awkwardly drawn pen-and-ink studies of male and female heads on red prepared paper (1518; Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Mus.). His first engraving, dated 1518, is a diminutive Portrait of a Young Woman.
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