Venus and Vulcan at the Forge (after Perino Del Vega)
Artist
Giorgio Ghisi
(Italian, 1520 - 1582)
CultureItalian
Dateca.1550
Mediumengraving
DimensionsOverall, Support: 7 1/2 × 12 5/16 in. (19.1 × 31.3 cm)
Signedsigned “PIRINIUS IN.” below in the plate
Credit LineMuseum purchase
Object number2023.16.2
Not on view
DescriptionGhisi’s engraving after Perino del Vaga shows the god Vulcan, seated to the left, with a hammer in his upraised right hand; putti pumping bellows into a forge, in the center; Vulcan’s wife, Venus, seated to the right; and her child Cupid hiding beneath her seat.ProvenancePierre Mariette II (1634–1716), Paris (Lugt 1789), signed on verso and dated 1674 Albertina, Vienna (with their duplicate stamp Lug 5g) Probably with C. G. Boerner, Leipzig, May 25–27, 1925, part of lot 643 (“Eine schöne reiche Sammlung, Drei Blätter mit Mariettes Signatur.”) Bassenge Auctions, Berlin, probably by 1979 R. Stanley Johnson, Chicago Christie’s, New York, January 24, 2023, Lot 52 Published ReferencesR. S. Johnson Fine Art, published in Master Prints: Aspects of the History of Printmaking from Renaissance to Romanticism, Chicago, Fall 1985, no. 19
Boston & Sandwich Glass Co.
Boston & Sandwich Glass Co.
