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Venus and Mars Surprised by Vulcan

Creator

Dutch Artist · 1558–1617

Engraver

Hendrick Goltzius had a "compulsion to make ostentatious display of his virtuosity," a scholar once wrote. If Goltzius showed off, who can blame him? After all, he had the use of only one hand: his right hand had been maimed in a fire, and he was completely unable to extend his fingers. Goltzius arrived in Haarlem at age nineteen. Two years later, he married a rich widow who helped him set up a wo

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Date: about 1585
Medium: Pen and brown ink, brown wash, white gouache heightening, and black chalk, folded into squares, incised for transfer, lower right corner replaced
Culture: Dutch
Department: Drawings
Institution: Getty Museum
Object ID: 92cb6f45-b93b-4e1a-8d37-3fb97fa08d3c

From the Getty Museum record

In the foreground, Vulcan has just pulled off the net in which he ensnared his wife Venus and her lover Mars; the other gods, called in by Vulcan, join in the ridicule from above. Seemingly without effort, Hendrick Goltzius integrated two groups of nudes in complex poses, filling out the composition with Cupid at the lower right and Vulcan forging the net in the background. Goltzius made this drawing as a full-scale model for an engraving in the manner of Bartholomäus Spranger. Spranger's mythological compositions featured complex, erotic poses, and Goltzius adopted the style for a number of drawings and engravings. The engraving after this drawing, Goltzius's largest and most complex in Spranger's style, helped to secure his reputation on its publication in 1585. The inscription on the engraving, *HGoltzius invenit sculpsit et divulgavit*, confirms that Goltzius acted as designer, engraver, and publisher for the print.

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