The Calumny of Apelles

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Artist: Cornelis Cort (Netherlandish, 1533–1609)
Medium: Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
Size: Image: 40.8 × 55.6 cm (16 1/8 × 21 15/16 in.); Plate/sheet, trimmed slightly within platemark: 42 × 55.7 cm (16 9/16 × 21 15/16 in.)
Museum: Art Institute of Chicago
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

Cornelis Cort’s engraving recreates a lost painting by the ancient Greek artist Apelles, an allegory of slander known only from a detailed description by the ancient historian Lucian. Renaissance artists including Sandro Botticelli, Andrea Mantegna, Albrecht Dürer, and even Pieter Brueghel produced drawings and paintings based on the historian Lucian’s descriptions in homage to various artists of antiquity. Dürer was even called “the Apelles of the North.” Cort’s engraving includes an illusionistic heavily sculptured frame, which highlights prints’ ability to mimic paintings as objects, as well as revive their iconography.

Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0.