print
- Museum number
- 1867,0413.549
- Title
- Series: Lascivie
- Description
-
The 'Satyr Mason'; a naked woman lying on a bed with a satyr standing in front of her holding a plumb-line over her; a child also seated on the bed and a cat below it, with a birdcage hanging in the window. c.1590-1595
Engraving
- Production date
- 1585-1600
- Dimensions
-
Height: 203 millimetres
-
Width: 134 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- See curator's comment to 1867,0413.543.
As was noted by Huigen Leeflang Agostino's inspiration for the motif of a satyr with a plumb line was a Hieronymus Wierix 'Vanitas' print after Ambrosius Francken of 1578 (BM impression 1937,0220.2). Malcolm Jones in 'The Print in Early Modern England', 2010, p. 229 observed that the Satyr Mason was evidently notorious amongst 17C English collectors and was then -- understandably -- considered part of Aretino's "I Modi" ["Postures"] series. In his diary compiled in Rome in 1650/1, Richard Symonds bewailed the fact that he could not obtain an impression of what he called "the plumet" -- referring to the Satyr Mason's plumb-line at the centre of the composition -- and in "Thomas Dangerfields Answer" (London, 1680), Dangerfield alludes in passing to "the Satyr in Aretines Postures, with a Line and Plummet in his Hairy Fist".
Lit.: H. Leeflang, 'Willem van Haecht en Agostino Caracci of de lot gevallen van een obscene inventie', "Kunstlicht", 27, 2006, pp. 12-16
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2007/8 Oct-Jan, London, Barbican Art Gallery, 'Seduced...'
- Acquisition date
- 1867
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1867,0413.549