Art Institute of Chicago

Oenotria Telus, An Idealized Woodland Scene Near Naples

Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein

Date

1796

Medium

Etching in black on ivory wove paper

Culture

Germany

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

This sizable landscape print by Tischbein, the German director of the Neapolitan art academy, served as a frontispiece for his book Homer Drawn after the Antique . Tischbein also describes himself on the title page as the depot director of the Farnese Antiquities, a Renaissance-era collection, which he moved from Rome to Naples. Rather than reproducing Homeric scenes from ancient sculpture as was done elsewhere in the book, this etching depicts the verdant landscape of the Cyclops Polyphemus’s island before the advent of the dangerous Odysseus, imagining it as a secluded glade in Naples. The luscious hanging swags of grapes bar the viewer’s entry while dangling the promise of wine to Dionysos’s devotees.

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