Jupiter, from "The Planets"

About this artwork

Jacob Matham's "Young Man and Old Woman" demonstrates the artist's command of Dutch Mannerist graphic tradition inherited from his stepfather and teacher, Hendrick Goltzius. Matham (1571-1631) entered Goltzius's Haarlem workshop at age ten, becoming one of the Dutch Golden Age's most prolific engravers. This drawing falls within his mature period when he had absorbed Goltzius's virtuosic pen technique while developing his broader approach. Contrasting ages was a popular moralizing theme in Dutch...

Art Historical Context

This engraving of Jupiter forms part of Jacob Matham’s series “The Planets,” created around 1597 in the vibrant artistic circles of Haarlem. Matham (1571–1631), stepson and principal pupil of Hendrick Goltzius, translated the master’s dynamic designs into print with remarkable precision. The small sheet captures the Roman god enthroned amid eagles, symbols of power and the heavens, rendered through the crisp, swelling lines characteristic of Dutch Mannerist engraving. Matham entered Goltzius’s workshop at age ten and absorbed the older artist’s virtuosic technique before developing his own br...

About the Artist

Jacob Matham|Hendrick Goltzius · 1571–1631

**Jacob Matham: Master Engraver of Haarlem** Jacob Matham was born on October 15, 1571, in Haarlem, in the Northern Netherlands, into a burgeoning artistic milieu. Following his father's early death, his mother married the renowned painter and engraver Hendrick Goltzius in 1579, who adopted the young Jacob and trained him rigorously in the workshop as his stepson and pupil. Matham's first signed ...