The Allegory of Fame and History by Hendrick Goltzius - An Extraordinary View

The Allegory of Fame and History

The Allegory of Fame and History c1586 by Dutch Engraver Hendrick Goltzius (1558 – 1617); an Engraver, Draftsman, Painter and Print Publisher.

This engraving shows two females among ancient ruins, with one of the females being a nude angel with her with a robe wrapped just below her breast and swirling around her the back of her body and outstretched left leg.

The angel is floating above a block portion of what appears to be a tomb as she blows a horn that she is holding with her right hand looking skyward, while holding another horn with her left hand of her lowered outstretched arm.

Below her is the other female that appears to be human that is also nude with just a cloth wrapped around her waist, as she kneels with her right knee on the ground near a small plant leaning against the tomb, while supporting her weight with her outstretched left leg partially in a ditch.

This lad is holding in her left hand, slightly above her head a small open box that has a dove in it near its out edge and a fiery phoenix with rising flames and smoke from the center of the box.

Above her head is a floating hourglass that has outspread wings; and she is reading from an open book, that is situated among many others books on top of the tomb, with one in particular having on it, the upper portion of a human skull with remnants of hair still on it.

The Allegory of Fame and History by Hendrick Goltzius Remastered Xzendor7 Classical Art Old Masters Reproductions Floor Pillow

To her left side is placed a medium sized vase on the tombs edge, and behind her on the opposite side of the tomb, is some sort of antelope with its head bent down and to its right.

On the tomb there are several inscriptions in Greek and Latin; with inscriptions below the engraving in a large caption.

The Allegory of Fame and History is a remastered digital art old masters reproduction of a public domain image that is available as a canvas print online.

Info Below Derived From Wikipedia.org

Hendrick was born near Venlo in Bracht or Millebrecht, a village then in the Duchy of Julich, his family moved to Duisburg when he was 3 years old and when he came of age studied painting on glass under his father for a number of years.

He then study under the Dutch Polymath Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert (1522 – 1590), with whom he studied engraving.

In 1577 he then moved with Coornhert to Haarlem in the Dutch Republic, where he would remain for the rest of his life; and for a while in Haarlem he would work with Philip Galle (1537 – 1612), to engrave a set of prints of the history of Lucretia.

Side Note: Lucretia; anglicized as Lucrece, was a noblewoman in ancient Rome, whose rape by Sextus Tarquinius (Tarquin) and subsequent suicide precipitated a rebellion that overthrew the Roman monarchy and led to the transition of Roman government from a kingdom to a republic.

Due to a fire injury to his right hand, that Hendrick suffered as a baby causing it to be malformed, he became adept due to this injury to holding the burin (sharp engraving tool) as he was forced to to draw with the large muscles of his arm and shoulder.

Hendrick was a master of the “swelling line” and also a pioneer of the “dot and lozenge” technique, where dots are placed in the middle of lozenge shaped spaces created by cross-hatching to further refine tonal shading.