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Dürer's Satyr Family
In the years around 1500, the German engraver Albrecht Dürer -- who visited Italy in 1495 and again in 1505 -- produced a group of prints inspired by classical antiquity and contemporary Italian models. As his rapid preliminary drawing reveals, Dürer initially intended to depict a centaur family, the subject of an ancient painting described by the Greek writer Lucian. He later transformed it in his exquisite engraving to a satyr's family, a pastoral subject much in vogue in Venice at the time. Both figures also betray the influence of Andrea Mantegna's Battle of the Sea Gods (on view in room 1), a print Dürer had studied closely. Inspired by Italy, Dürer's print was in turn copied by Italian artists and printmakers, influencing bronze plaquettes, painted maiolica, and engravings produced in northern Italy. |