Saturn, from "The Planets"
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
sheet: 4 1/4 x 2 7/8 in. (10.8 x 7.3 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Phyllis Massar, 2011
Accession Number
2012.136.467.3
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the late 16th century, Dutch engravers Hendrick Goltzius and pupil Jacob Matham collaborated on intricate print series like *The Planets*, blending classical mythology with Renaissance humanism. This 1597 engraving, *Saturn, from "The Planets"*, captures the brooding god of time and agriculture—often depicted as a devourer of his own children—in a compact sheet measuring just 4¼ x 2⅞ inches. Evocative tags of children, Saturn, and suggest a dramatic scene rich in symbolism: Saturn's grim persona tied to melancholy and the inexorable passage of time, possibly with goats evoking fertility, ru...
About the Artist
Jacob Matham|Hendrick Goltzius · 1571–1631
**Jacob Matham: Master Engraver of Haarlem** Jacob Matham was born on October 15, 1571, in Haarlem, in the Northern Netherlands, into a burgeoning artistic milieu. Following his father's early death, his mother married the renowned painter and engraver Hendrick Goltzius in 1579, who adopted the young Jacob and trained him rigorously in the workshop as his stepson and pupil. Matham's first signed ...