Supplementary Images
Monstrous Masculinity? Hendrick Goltzius and The Great Hercules (1589)
This page contains supplementary images (or links to images) as referred to in this paper by Joanna Woodall for the volume The Exemplary Hercules: from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment and beyond; Editors: Emma Stafford (Leeds) and Valerie Mainz (Leeds). Please note that the image thumbnails (shown where online copyright is unrestricted) have been cropped to their centre by the page template used. These images are clickable (the target is the link text displayed) and will then show in a full version (i.e. a thumbnail of part of an etching will produce an image of the whole etching). All images of items in the British Museum are (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.
Goltzius’ first engagement with Hercules
Goltzius’ first engagement with the subject appears to be an early engraving of 1575-77, after Francesco Primaticcio, which shows Hercules on a ship, defending himself against an attack by the three-bodied Geryon.
The Wedding of Cupid and Psyche
Spranger’s pen and wash drawing, 397mm by 834mm, is in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam.
The Wedding of Cupid and Psyche
Goltzius’ engraving was produced from three plates measuring in total 427mm by 849mm. There is an example in the British Museum Print Room, London (1852, 1211.63, 64, 65).
Hercules and Cacus
Hercules and Cacus, published by Willem Jansz. Blaeu. Examples in the British Museum Print Room (London W,5.37, 410mm by 335mm and 1895, 0617.83, 405mm by 330mm) are viewable online through the BM's online collection.
See also the example of The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1951, Metropolitan Museum (Inv. 51.501.4440).
Hercules and his son Telephos
Hendrick Goltzius, Hercules and his son Telephos, engraving 1592 (published by Herman Adolfsz. 1617), 411mm by 299mm.
The Farnese Hercules
Hendrick Goltzius, The Farnese Hercules, engraving 1592 (published by Herman Adolfsz. 1617), 416mm by 300mm. Examples of the latter are in the British Museum Print Room (London D,5.267 and 1854,0513.104).
The Farnese Hercules
Jacob Bos, Omnium elegantissimum Herculis signum Gliconis Atheniensis peritissimi artificis manu fabrefactum, quod Paulo III Pont. Max. in thermarum Antoniniarum ruderibus inventum, et in domus Farnesianae ad campum Florae interiori porticu locatum (‘The most elegant statue of Hercules of all, made by the hand of the most skilled artist, Glycon of Athens, which was discovered in the papacy of Paul III in the Antonian baths, and placed in the Villa Farnese, in the interior portico, near Flora’s Field’), 1562, engraving 447mm by 302mm. British Museum Print Room, 1869, 0410.2209.
Giorgio Ghisi, The Farnese Hercules, c.1578, engraving 360mm by 216mm. Print Room of the British Museum, London, 1865, 0610.15.
Hercules is wrestling with the shape-shifting river-god Achelous
Cornelis Cort after a painting by Frans Floris, 1563, engraving 223mm by 285mm. An example is in the Print Room of the British Museum, London, F, 1.282.
Hercules Pomarius
Attributed to Willem Danielsz van Tetrode, bronze c.1562-1567, 395mm high.
Hercules and Deianeira
‘Hercules and a naked Deianeira after Goltzius’ by Jacob Matham c.1590. There is an example in the Print Room of the British Museum, London, 1856,0209.287.
Hercules attributed to Goltzius
Charcoal drawing, depicting a paunchy, rather doleful-looking Hercules with the suggestively round paw of his lion-skin hanging low-down between his striding legs.
The Print Room of the British Museum, London, 1946, 0713.984 (formerly attributed to Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem (1562-1638)).
The Print Room of the British Museum, London, 1946, 0713.984 (formerly attributed to Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem (1562-1638)).
Myological figures
The myological figures in Andreas Vesalius’s (1514-1564) anatomical atlas De humani corporis fabrica (On the Structure of the Human Body, 1543) book 7 were all set in landscapes and approximately 425mm by 285mm.
Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus
The 1606 pen-painting Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus (‘Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus freezes’) has Goltzius himself recognisable in the background, holding a burin, his right hand seemingly in the flames.
Gaius Mucius Scaevola
The engraving of Gaius Mucius Scaevola, produced in the 1580s shows the Roman hero proving his courage by unflinchingly placing his hand in a blazing fire. An example is held in the Print Room of the British Museum, London, 1854, 0513.95.
Goltzius' personal emblem
The pun on Goltzius’ name (Goltzius was conscious of the pun between his name and the Dutch word for gold) is evident in a personal emblem drawn by Goltzius dated 1609. A laurel-crowned, classical bust representing Honour flies above a caduceus of Mercury, god of eloquence, the base of which is inserted into a pot of gold coins. The inscription ‘Eer boven Golt’ means ‘Honour above Gold’. Drawing, pen and dark brown ink on cream laid paper, 150.8mm by 89mm, Crocker Art Museum, E. B. Crocker Collection, Sacramentio, California, 1871.143.