Minerva

Bartholomeus Spranger|Jan Muller

ca. 1600 · Engraving · Drawings and Prints

This striking, unfinished engraving of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, was only attributed to Jan Muller relatively recently. It belongs to a group of large-scale engravings after Bartolomeus Spranger, the court painter to Rudolf II, that Muller made between 1597 and 1606. While the figure is largely completed, the hatching of the drapery at the lower right stops abruptly. There are also large blank areas in the background and a rapidly sketched oval in the upper left corner, all of which suggests that this might be a work in progress, and Muller is famous for the large number of incomplete proof impressions that he printed during his lifetime. However, in contrast to those proofs, there are no "finished" impressions of this print recorded. The print was previously considered to be the work of Aegidius Sadler or Jacob Matham.

Artist

Bartholomeus Spranger|Jan Muller

Date

ca. 1600

Medium

Engraving

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949