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The Judgment of Midas

Creator

German Artist · 1596–1621

Little is known of Hermann Weyer's life and artistic development except that his father was a painter in Coburg and his brother also worked there as a portrait painter. Weyer probably specialized as a draftsman; only his drawings, which are dated between 1607 and 1621, exist today. His highly finished style demonstrates that he intended them as independent works. Nothing is known about his trainin

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Date: 1616
Medium: Pen and black ink, black, ochre, reddish and gray washes, with white gouache heightening
Culture: German
Department: Drawings
Institution: Getty Museum
Object ID: 9e2c2d51-39c5-4876-9d36-bbd81dcfaf98

From the Getty Museum record

Granted anything he could wish for, King Midas desired that everything he touched be turned to gold. He soon realized his mistake, however, when even the food that he handled became inedible. Here the bearded god Dionysus, crowned with a wreath of vine leaves, allows the penitent Midas, who stands on the right, to wash away his powers in the River Pactolus. A satyr with his pipes crouches at the god's feet, while nymphs cluster around. Hermann Weyer copied the composition of another artist's painting for this drawing, which Weyer made as an independent work. He used different types of strokes to build up the scene, from simple lines with sparse hatching on the figures to a complex layering of ink, wash, and heightening on the foliage at the back. Sweeps of wash give form and volume to the bodies of the nymphs.

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