Mountainous Landscape
1608
Medium
Etching on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Sheet (trimmed): 12.5 × 21 cm (4 15/16 × 8 5/16 in.)
Classification
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
268333
Art Historical Context
Created in 1608 by Dutch artist Simon Frisius, *Mountainous Landscape* captures the growing fascination with nature during the Dutch Golden Age. Frisius, active as an etcher and engraver in the early seventeenth century, helped popularize landscape as an independent subject in printmaking. This small etching on ivory laid paper, measuring just 12.5 by 21 centimeters, exemplifies how artists of the period used the medium to explore dramatic terrain and atmospheric effects. Etching allowed Frisius to achieve fine lines and tonal variation that evoke the rugged mountains and distant horizons wit...