Plate 19: Vulcan standing in a niche swinging a hammer, with an anvil, hammer, and tongs at his feet, from "Mythological Gods and Goddesses"
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
Sheet: 8 1/4 × 4 3/16 in. (20.9 × 10.7 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949
Accession Number
49.97.240
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the fiery forge of Roman mythology with *Plate 19: Vulcan standing in a niche swinging a hammer, with an anvil, hammer, and tongs at his feet*, from the series *Mythological Gods and Goddesses* (1526). Engraved by Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio after designs by the Mannerist master Rosso Fiorentino, this intimate print (8 1/4 × 4 3/16 in.) captures the god of fire and metalworking in dynamic motion. Vulcan, the Roman equivalent of Hephaestus, is poised powerfully within an architectural niche, his muscular form mid-swing as he hammers away, surrounded by his essential tools—an anvil, hamme...
About the Artist
Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio|Rosso Fiorentino · 1500–1565
Italian, Parma or Verona ca. 1500/1505–1565 Krakow (?)