Geboorte van Adonis

About this artwork

pen in bruin, witte verf, op grijs geprepareerd papier

Art Historical Context

Hendrick Goltzius’s *Geboorte van Adonis* (Birth of Adonis), created in 1605, captures a dramatic moment from classical mythology. The drawing depicts the infant Adonis emerging from the myrrh tree into which his mother Myrrha had been transformed, a story drawn from Ovid’s *Metamorphoses*. By this date Goltzius had already established himself as one of the leading Northern Mannerist artists, celebrated for both his virtuoso engravings and his later paintings; this large sheet reflects his continued interest in refined draftsmanship even after he turned to oil painting around 1600. Executed i...

About the Artist

Hendrick Goltzius · 1558–1617

Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617) was the most celebrated engraver of the Northern Renaissance and a pivotal figure in Dutch Mannerism. Born near the German-Dutch border, Goltzius transformed printmaking into a virtuoso art form through his revolutionary 'swelling line' technique, where the burin was manipulated to create lines of varying thickness that produced unprecedented tonal effects and three-d...