Sol

About this artwork

Apollo naakt en gezeten op een troon, naast hem een zon, voor hem knielt Phaeton en vraagt de zonnewagen te mogen berijden. Een uit een serie van zeven prenten met goden die de planeten verbeelden.

Art Historical Context

Behold *Sol* (1533), a engraving by Heinrich Aldegver, one of the renowned "Little Masters" of the Northern Renaissance. This intimate print, measuring just 97 mm high by 63 mm wide, captures a moment from classical mythology: the nude god Apollo, embodying the Sun, seated regally on a throne with a radiant sun emblem beside him. Kneeling before him is his son Phaëton, pleading to borrow the fiery sun chariot—a fateful request that, in Ovid's *Metamorphoses*, ends in catastrophe. As the first in Aldegrever's series of seven engravings personifying planetary deities, *Sol* reflects the Renaiss...

About the Artist

Heinrich Aldegrever · 1502–1561

Heinrich Aldegrever, born in 1502 in Paderborn, Westphalia, to parents Herman and Katherine Trippenmeker—a family of clog-makers known by the dialect name Trippenmecker—emerged as a multifaceted artist in the German Renaissance. His early training remains undocumented, though he likely apprenticed in a Soest goldsmith's workshop after relocating there around 1525, where he joined the painters' gui...