Plate 101: Silenus before King Midas, from 'Ovid's Metamorphoses'
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Sheet (Trimmed): 4 3/4 × 7 7/8 in. (12 × 20 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1917
Accession Number
17.50.15-268
Art Historical Context
Step into the mythical world of ancient Rome through Johann Wilhelm Baur's *Plate 101: Silenus King Midas*, an etching from his 1641 series illustrating Ovid's *Metamorphoses*. This captures a pivotal moment from Ovid's epic poem: the drunken satyr Silenus, companion to Dionysus, stands before King Midas after being found wandering in Phrygia. In gratitude for returning Silenus, Dionysus would grant Midas his infamous golden touch—a gift that proves both wondrous and cursed. Baur, a prolific 17th-century German artist and engraver active in Vienna and Italy, masterfully condenses this classica...
About the Artist
Johann Wilhelm Baur · 1607–1642
Johann Wilhelm Baur was a German draughtsman, painter, and printmaker who came of age in the early seventeenth century and built his reputation through the production of finely detailed illustrations and miniatures. Though the precise details of his training remain incompletely documented, Baur developed his skills in the tradition of German and Northern European graphic art, showing influences fr...