Sheep by a Statue of Pan, plate five from Paysages Dédiés à M. Warelet
1764
Medium
Etching on cream laid paper
Dimensions
Plate: 20.8 × 18.9 cm (8 1/4 × 7 1/2 in.); Sheet: 39 × 27.3 cm (15 3/8 × 10 3/4 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
129443
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This charming etching from a series of mythological landscapes by the German Romantic-era printmaker Gessner suggests the artist was familiar with Claude Gillot’s Pan etching on view nearby (see 1969.280). This print depicts a goat fondly raising its horned head toward a herm with a bust of Pan. While the flock of sheep seem uninterested in the moss-covered column, this antiquarian-enthusiast beast is drawn to the bust as if aware of the god’s oath to protect all cloven-hoofed creatures. The Rom...
About the Artist
Salomon Gessner · 1730–1788
Salomon Gessner was born in Zurich in 1730 into a family of printers and publishers, an upbringing that placed books, images, and ideas at the center of his world from an early age. Though largely self-taught as a visual artist, he received some instruction during a period in Berlin, where he encountered the German Rococo tradition, and his mature work reflects a deep absorption in the pastoral li...