print;
drawing book
- Museum number
- 1850,0810.686
- Title
- Series: Signorum Veterum Icones
- Description
-
Statue of the fleeing daughter of Niobe wearing a garment and facing right; side view
Etching
- Production date
- 1672-1689 (c.)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 224 millimetres
-
Width: 98 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- This etching and those on plate six (1850,0810.659) and seven (1850,0810.660) are copies in reverse after a part of the Medici group of 'The Deaths of the Children of Niobe', which is a copy of the late Hellenistic, Roman Republican or early Imperial period after a lost Hellenistic original. The etchings were made after drawings by Doudijns, but neither these nor any intermediary drawings can be traced. In his list of contents and locations, De Bisschop rightly says that the sculptures which he reproduces here, form part of the Medici group. He also mentions Pliny's uncertainty, as to whether Skopas or Praxiteles was the artist, but he wisely adds that it is believed that it was the Medici group which is the work mentioned by Pliny. He furthermore refers to an epigram in titulus 9 of the fourth book of the 'Greek Anthology' where he found the testimony that Praxiteles had made a marble work of this subject. De Bisschop clearly had the 'Anthologia Planudea' at his disposal and refers to epigram 1 in the book and the titulus he mentions. The statue group has been restored in the sixteenth and the eighteenth century. Modern additions include most of the right arm with the hand and part of the garment, the left fore-arm with the elbow, and the visible parts of the feet. The lower part of the garment, the feet and the base seem to be different in the etching, perhaps partly due to the restoration in the second half of the eighteenth century. the absence of the sandals, could have been an omission of the draughtsman.
For comment on volume see 1850,0810.652.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1850
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1850,0810.686
