The Calumny of Apelles

Description

Cornelis Cort’s engraving recreates a lost painting by the ancient Greek artist Apelles, an allegory of slander known only from a detailed description by the ancient historian Lucian. Renaissance artists including Sandro Botticelli, Andrea Mantegna, Albrecht Dürer, and even Pieter Brueghel produced drawings and paintings based on the historian Lucian’s descriptions in homage to various artists of antiquity. Dürer was even called “the Apelles of the North.” Cort’s engraving includes an illusionistic heavily sculptured frame, which highlights prints’ ability to mimic paintings as objects, as well as revive their iconography.

The Calumny of Apelles

Cornelis Cort

1572

Accession Number

131389

Medium

Engraving in black on ivory laid paper

Dimensions

Image: 40.8 × 55.6 cm (16 1/8 × 21 15/16 in.); Plate/sheet, trimmed slightly within platemark: 42 × 55.7 cm (16 9/16 × 21 15/16 in.)

Classification

engraving

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Print and Drawing Fund and Stanley Field Endowment