Sine Cerere et Baccho Friget Venus [Without Ceres and Bacchus Venus Grows Cold]
ca. 1597
![Sine Cerere et Baccho Friget Venus [Without Ceres and Bacchus Venus Grows Cold] by Jan Muller|Bartholomeus Spranger](https://images.artheonmuseum.org/met/dp/thumb/sine-cerere-et-baccho-friget-venus-without-ceres-366421.webp)
Medium
Engraving; New Holl.’s second state of four
Dimensions
sheet: 20 x 14 1/8 in. (50.8 x 35.8 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
49.50.406
Tags
Art Historical Context
This engraving, created around 1597 by Jan Muller after a design by Bartholomeus Spranger, captures the playful spirit of late Renaissance mythology. The Latin title, translating to “Without Ceres and Bac Venus Grows Cold,” draws on an ancient proverb suggesting that love requires nourishment and wine to thrive. Spranger, a leading Flemish artist at the court of Emperor Rudolf II in Prague, infused the composition with the elegant distortions and sensual figures characteristic of Northern Mannerism, while Muller translated these qualities into the precise lines of engraving. As a reproductive...
About the Artist
Jan Muller|Bartholomeus Spranger · 1571–1628
**Jan Harmensz. Muller (1571–1628)** Born in Amsterdam in 1571, Jan Harmensz. Muller grew up immersed in the world of printmaking, as the son of the prominent engraver, publisher, and book printer Harmen Jansz. Muller. He studied under his father, mastering the engraving trade within the family business, The Gilded Compasses. Around 1589, Muller joined the workshop of Hendrick Goltzius in Haarlem...