Erato, plate fourteen from Apollo and the Muses
Medium
Engraving on paper
Dimensions
Plate: 17.9 × 10 cm (7 1/16 × 3 15/16 in.); Sheet: 18.5 × 10.5 cm (7 5/16 × 4 3/16 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
11467
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The deck of fifty so-called Tarocchi are not tarots in the modern, fortune-telling sense, nor were they intended as playing cards. No cut-out impressions mounted for play are known, and they lack the suits and numbers of a regular deck. Instead, these delicately engraved didactic allegories are grouped in five numbered ranks describing the workings of the spheres of man, the muses, the liberal arts, the cosmos, and the heavens in order of increasing significance, and offer a didactic sequence to...
About the Artist
Master of the E-Series Tarocchi · 1460–1475
The Master of the E-Series Tarocchi was an anonymous Italian engraver active in Ferrara around 1465, during the vibrant era of the Este court. His early life and training remain undocumented, but stylistic affinities link him to artists collaborating with Francesco del Cossa on the frescoes of Palazzo Schifanoia's Salone dei Mesi. Working in the Ferrarese tradition, he produced the pioneering E-se...