Circe with the companions of Ulysses changed into animals
Medium
Etching, touches of red chalk added by hand
Dimensions
Sheet: 8 1/4 × 11 7/8 in. (21 × 30.2 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Bertina Suida Manning and Robert L. Manning, 1980
Accession Number
1980.1135.1
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the enchanting etching *Circe with the Companions of Ulysses Changed into Animals* (1650–51), Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, known as Il Grechetto, captures a pivotal moment from Homer's *Odyssey*. The sorceress Circe, surrounded by the ruins of her palace, presides over Odysseus's transformed crew—now a menagerie of peacocks, deer, sheep, and other beasts. Created during the Italian Baroque era, this print draws on classical mythology to explore themes of enchantment, power, and the blurred line between human and animal, resonating with 17th-century fascination with ancient tales amid the...
About the Artist
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Il Grechetto) · 1609–1664
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, known as Il Grechetto, was baptized on March 23, 1609, in Genoa and died on May 5, 1664, in Mantua. Born into a large family, he collaborated closely with his brother Salvatore, an artist who shared his talents, and later taught his son Francesco, whose works were sometimes confused with his own. His parents placed him in the studio of Giovanni Battista Paggi, where...