The Circumcision, plate four from The Birth and Early Life of Christ
Medium
Engraving on off-white laid paper
Dimensions
464 × mm 353 mm (image); 480 × 354 mm (plate/sheet)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
80034
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This celebrated print belongs to the Life of the Virgin series. Goltzius's composition and method of using burin is deceptively close to that of Albrecht Dürer. Although Goltzius succeeded in capturing Dürer's style, he also imposed his own ideas and settings. The artist set the scene in an exact rendering of a chapel of St. Bravo's Church in Haarlem. The artist also portrayed himself standing in the arched doorway in the background, gazing out at the viewer. This is the earliest extant portrait...
About the Artist
Hendrick Goltzius · 1558–1617
Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617) was the most celebrated engraver of the Northern Renaissance and a pivotal figure in Dutch Mannerism. Born near the German-Dutch border, Goltzius transformed printmaking into a virtuoso art form through his revolutionary 'swelling line' technique, where the burin was manipulated to create lines of varying thickness that produced unprecedented tonal effects and three-d...