Satyr Driving a Pair of Goats
1626
Medium
etching on laid paper
Dimensions
plate: 7.2 × 26.3 cm (2 13/16 × 10 3/8 in.) sheet: 8.4 × 26.7 cm (3 5/16 × 10 1/2 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund
Accession Number
2015.44.24
Art Historical Context
In the whimsical etching *Satyr Driving a Pair Goats*, created by French artist Pierre Brébiette in 1626, a lively mythological satyr herds a pair of spirited goats across the page. Brébiette, a Mannerist engraver active in early 17th-century Paris, drew inspiration from classical antiquity, blending playful fantasy with pastoral themes popular in the Fontainebleau school tradition. This small-scale print (plate: 7.2 × 26.3 cm) captures the satyr's dynamic motion and the goats' friskiness through fluid lines, evoking the wild revelry of bacchic scenes from Greco-Roman lore. Etching on laid pa...
About the Artist
Pierre Brebiette · 1598–1642
Pierre Brébiette (c. 1598–c. 1642) was a French painter and etcher whose elegant, sensuous treatment of classical mythology and allegory earned him a significant reputation in early seventeenth-century Paris. Born in Mantes-sur-Seine, Brébiette traveled to Italy as a young man and lived and worked in Rome from around 1617 to approximately 1625, absorbing the influences of ancient sculpture, Renais...