13. Georg Pencz
(ca. 1500-1550)
Artemisia Preparing to Drink Her Husband’s Ashes

(click on image to print)
Pencz: Artemisia Preparing to Drink

Artemisia Preparing to Drink Her Husband’s Ashes

Engraving, ca.1539, 190 x 134 mm., Bartsch 83, Landau 91 a (of b). Provenance: Wilhelm Drugulin (Lugt 2612). A very fine, sharp impression on laid paper with a complex but difficult to decipher watermark, trimmed to the subject, ca. 2 mm. into the subject at the top, removing the top of the escutcheon, but with apparently 1 mm. more at the right than the impressions illustrated in Bartsch and Landau; tiny surface loss at the right bottom. Artemisia was the widow of Mausolus, satrap of Caria in Asia Minor. She erected a great monument to his memory at Halicarnassus (hence, “mausoleum”), which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. According to legend, she mixed the ashes of Mausolus in liquid which she then drank, becoming a living tomb. Accordingly, she symbolizes a widow's devotion to her husband's memory.

Inquire $3,000.00 Buy Now