album;
drawing
- Museum number
- 1900,0526.3
- Description
-
'The Florentine Picture-Chronicle' page from the album (recto of 1900, 0526.4): Cadmus slaying the dragon with the walled and moated city of Thebes behind , the cityscape continued from the left-hand page of the opening (1889,0527.28)
Pen and brown ink and brown wash over black chalk (some ruled)
- Production date
- 1470-1475 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 326 millimetres
-
Width: 232 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Son of Agenor and Telephassa, brother of Europa, and legendary founder of Thebes; followed a cow which led him to the location of the future Thebes; as Cadmus and his men went to a spring in order to fetch water to prepare the sacrifice of the cow, they were attacked by a dragon; Cadmus slained it and sowed its teeth, which turned into armed men (the Spartes); Cadmus vanquished them by throwing stones at them and only five of them survived; as the dragon was sacred to Mars/Ares, Cadmus had to spend eight years in servitude to the god.
Two different artists seem to have been responsible for this opening.
Lit.: S. Colvin, 'A Florentine Picture Chronicle', London, 1898; A.E. Popham and P. Pouncey, 'Italian drawings in the BM, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries', London, 1950, I, no. 274, II, pls. CCXXXVII-CCXLI.
For Popham & Pouncey 1950 entry see 1889,0527.1
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
BM, 'Padua in the 1450s', 1998, no. 16
- Acquisition date
- 1900
- Acquisition notes
- Popham & Pouncey 1950
Please see 1889,0527.1-95 for further provenance.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1900,0526.3
