Marcus Curtius, plate 4, from The Roman Heroes
1586
16th century
36.9 cm x 23.7 cm (14 1/2 in. x 9 5/16 in.)
Hendrick Goltzius
(Mülbracht, Germany, 1558 - 1617, Haarlem, The Netherlands)
Primary
Object Type:
print
Artist Nationality:
Europe, Dutch
Medium and Support:
Engraving
Credit Line:
Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, The Leo Steinberg Collection, 2002
Accession Number:
2002.2170.5/10
The Roman Heroes constitute Goltzius’s first series of humanistic theme and a capital example of his early, muscular style. The Collection includes uniformly superb impressions of all ten plates. Goltzius and his followers, the so-called Haarlem Mannerists, brought engraving to a new level of technical accomplishment, syntactic organization, and descriptive range. Their work was little considered by art historians and out of fashion with most collectors until the 1970s. By that time, Steinberg had gathered scores of choice works.