Hercules Slaying the Hydrac. 1602
Jan Harmensz. Muller made this in about 1602, aged about 26. It is now at the Art Institute of Chicago. More about this work
About this work
A work made of engraving on ivory laid paper.
Description from the Art Institute of Chicago.
Jan Harmensz. Muller made this in about 1602, aged about 26. It is now at the Art Institute of Chicago.
How it was made
- Engraving
- Lines cut directly into a metal plate with a steel burin, which makes them swell and taper. It took years to master, and for centuries it was how paintings travelled as pictures.
- Laid paper
- Handmade on a mould of close-set wires, which leave fine parallel lines you can see when the sheet is held to the light.
Jan Harmensz. Muller
Dutch, 1571–1628
Muller came from an Amsterdam family of engravers and publishers and became one of the most accomplished Dutch Mannerist engravers. Working in the swelling-line manner associated with Hendrick Goltzius, he engraved compositions after Bartholomeus Spranger, Cornelis van Haarlem and the sculptor Adriaen de Vries, as well as his own designs, rendering muscular figures in dramatic, twisting poses.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Dutch Golden Age
Seventeenth-century painting from the Dutch Republic: still lifes, interiors, portraits and flat, wide skies.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Art Institute of Chicago has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 2023.1179
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Type
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
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