Photograph by Ed Pollard, Hasselblad H4D50 - 2023.

Tityus (after Michelangelo)

Publisher Antonio Salamanca (Italian, 1500 - 1562)

CultureFrench

Date1540-1550

MediumEngraving

InscribedAn inscription below reads “TITIUS GIGAS WLTURE DIVERSESQ[UE] PENIS LASEATUS,” ”

Markingson the verso is written “From the Joshua Reynolds Collection,/ mark on the former mounting.

Credit LineMuseum purchase

Object number2023.16.1

On View

Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 203

Label TextAttributed to Nicolas Beatrizet French, 1507–1573 Tityus (after Michelangelo), 1540–50 Engraving This engraving is based on a drawing Michelangelo made for the Roman nobleman Tommaso de’Cavalieri, the object of his passionate, unrequited infatuation. In Metamorphosis, Ovid recounts the story of Tityus, a giant who attempted to rape Leto, and as punishment was chained to a rock in Hades. He was visited every day by a vulture who would eat his liver, which would regenerate every night. The significance of Tityus’s story of unrequited lust and eternal suffering would not have been lost on Cavalieri. Museum purchase 2023.16.1 ProvenanceSir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), London (without mark, according to the pencil inscription on the verso); Sotheby’s, London, November 8, 2001, lot 42 to Eric G. Stanley (1913–2018), Oxford, to C.G. Boerner to CMA Published ReferencesStefania Massari and Simonetta Prosperi Valenti Rodina, Tra mito e allegoria: immagini a stampa nel ‘500 a ‘600 (Rome, 1989), no. 89. Adam Bartsch, Le Peintre Graveur 15 (Vienna, 1813), 259–60, no. 39.