The Courtesan Punished, from The Story of the Magician Virgil

Art Institute of Chicago

The Courtesan Punished, from The Story of the Magician Virgil

Georg PenczLinkedCulture matchlcp-6cb349065bf6

Date
1541/42
Medium
Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
Culture
Germany
Department
Prints and Drawings
Institution
Art Institute of Chicago
Object ID
77510

Furious at his romantic failure and at being exposed by his would-be paramour (as seen in the nearby Pencz engraving, 1919.2313), Virgil is said to have devised a cunning revenge that will seem cruel and misogynistic to contemporary viewers. In a reference to the supposedly insatiable lust of women, Virgil caused all of the fires in Rome to go out and an enchanted flame to issue forth from the emperor’s daughter’s genitals. This engraving shows her shame as she helps light all the lanterns of Rome.

View at Art Institute of Chicago ↗

The authoritative record is held by Art Institute of Chicago. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.

Get printable QR codes

Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.

Open this page QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.UZ6qBZeC_ns0VMTO.dc-gHRxfbJHZUBx4okYL4KztgeRkY1mIRWH7lKNDSRvmDM4nVVh4JA5bU6EUy3rHJtw-ctTGGtmN-O_OsgEvvPMfKzD6-0RosMHhqw6JCzeElwdIihD1zPztSLOeDIWc2c5GzasKSTfKDTjpgPHIfiC000jzWI04H-nGUbnaE6wCyFBV37tsSwop9rckzMEBtGYOxsEP9VhFxfRg2reBdNr-WwKNSX-0do0qNfDPgEX99ISMXfRoV7Digvf2P0yn8pBZBCOXyInpmw4QnCSyHenLSee at Art Institute of Chicago QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.xrFA4OdPP6HSbQgu.d6s2aYuEl_whv2mc4_YafAJGJfMJJTB8MH3wcspdjnuPM9H8LDtVzSIU_Qw3mgiYz2PxesfhlZuzeirWcNaVChZqhW4ZeH4sChrcpVkwo-lfPe8zMGcXr-ERABpRjPzVW7UfAQbMgNk-OygfQMHauUzeuLD9mBgwKq6EVLZe4WkaoH6DSUXNnMMZ71dh4W-u5i6kX2Qhz9lFcQZC5nLaTlPHSnYWjqu5LPcfD96OCIFBU-pHbF09IZ-b5evK22S-Vq0rKeO7Cakkup_KTEM57Q
Open this page
See at Art Institute of Chicago

Provenance & credit

As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.

Credit line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Potter Palmer

Linked open data

Authority identifiers that link this record into the wider web of cultural data — stable references you can follow to the source.

Object type
AAT300041273

Related across collections

Semantically similar works from Art Institute of Chicago and other institutions.