Joseph Heintz the Elder (1564–1609)
The Rape of Proserpina, circa 1595
Oil on copper
63 x 94 cms | 24 3/4 x 37 ins
Gem‰ldegalerie, Dresden, Germany
Proserpina, or Proserpine is an ancient Roman goddess whose cult, myths and mysteries were based on those of Greek Persephone and her mother Demeter, the Greek goddess of grain and agriculture. The Romans identified Proserpina with their native fertility goddess Libera, daughter of the grain and agriculture goddess Ceres and wife to Liber.
Venus, in order to bring love to Pluto, sent her son Amor (also known as Cupid) to hit Pluto with one of his arrows. Proserpina was in Sicily, at the Pergusa Lake near Enna, where she was playing with some nymphs and collecting flowers, when Pluto came out from the volcano Etna. He abducted her in order to marry her and live with her in the underworld of which he was the ruler.
Her mother Ceres went looking for her across all of the world, and all in vain. She was unable to find anything. In her desperation, Ceres angrily stopped the growth of fruits and vegetables, bestowing a malediction on Sicily. Ceres refused to return to Mount Olympus and started walking the Earth, creating a desert with each step.
Worried, Jupiter sent Mercury to order Pluto to free Proserpina. Pluto obeyed, but before letting her go he made her eat six pomegranate seeds, because those who have eaten the food of the dead could not return to the world of the living. This meant that she would have to live six months of each year with him, and stay the rest with her mother. More on Proserpina
Joseph Heintz (or Heinz) the Elder (11 June 1564 – 15 October 1609) was a Swiss painter, draftsman and architect.
Heintz was born in Basle. He appears to have been a pupil of Hans Bock, and to have educated himself by diligent practice in copying the works of Hans Holbein the younger. Between 1585 and 1587 he lived in Rome, registering himself a pupil; to Hans von Aachen.
Joseph Heintz the elder (1564–1609)
The Four Elements
Oil on panel
H 40 x W 28 cm
Southampton City Art Gallery
Joseph Heintz the Elder (circle of) Basel, 1564 – Prague, 1609
Allegory of Redemption, ca. 1600
Oil on canvas
88 × 101 cm
Szépművészeti Múzeum
Joseph Heintz the Elder
Sacco di Roma/ Sack of Rome
Oil on copper
18.5 x 32.5 cm
Private collection
The Sack of Rome on 24 August 410 AD was undertaken by the Visigoths led by their king, Alaric. At that time, Rome was no longer the capital of the Western Roman Empire, having been replaced in that position first by Mediolanum in 286 and then by Ravenna in 402. Nevertheless, the city of Rome retained a paramount position as "the eternal city" and a spiritual center of the Empire. This was the first time in almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy, and the sack was a major shock to contemporaries, friends and foes of the Empire alike. More on the Sack of Rome
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Netherlandish, Breda (?) ca. 1525–1569 Brussels)
The Harvesters, c. 1565
Oil on wood
45 7/8 x 62 7/8 in. (116.5 x 159.5 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In this work, the viewer is transported to a hot summer day in the Netherlands. It belongs to a series, commissioned by the Antwerp merchant Niclaes Jongelinck for his suburban home. The cycle originally included six paintings showing the times of the year. Apart from The Harvesters, which is usually identified as representing July–August, four other paintings of the group have survived (now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and Lobkowicz Collection, Prague). Bruegel’s series is a watershed in the history of Western art. The religious pretext for landscape painting has been suppressed in favor of a new humanism, and the unidealized description of the local scene is based on natural observations. More on this painting
He also studied ancient art and copied paintings by Renaissance artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Polidoro da Caravaggio. In 1587 he traveled to Florence and Venice, absorbing the styles of Tintoretto, Titian, and Paolo Veronese.
Joseph Heintz the Elder (1564–1609)
Diana and Actaeon, c. 1590s
Oil on copper plate
Height: 40 cm (15.7 in); Width: 49 cm (19.2 in)
Kunsthistorisches Museum,
In his Metamorphoses, Ovid recounts how Actaeon stumbled upon Diana, the chaste goddess of the hunt, and her nymphs bathing. She punished his transgression by turning him into a stag, and he was then devoured by his own hunting dogs. Compared to the refined poses beloved of his fellow-painters Spranger and von Aachen, the numerous bathing nudes in this composition bear witness to Heintz 'interest in verisimilitude. Diana and Actaeon
Joseph Heintz the Elder
Zeus and Callisto
Copperplate engraving
40 x 31 cms | 15 1/2 x 12 ins
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien, Austria
We may assume that in this small painting, produced more or less at the same time as Leda, Heintz depicts another of the loves of Zeus, the father of the gods, here identified by his traditional attributes, eagle and thunderbolt. The hounds and the bow and arrow suggest it is the story of Callisto, a chaste nymph whom Zeus lured into his embrace disguised as Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. More on this painting
Joseph Heintz the Elder (1564–1609)
Diana and Callisto
Oil on copper
Height: 47 cm (18.5 in); Width: 33 cm (12.9 in)
Private collection
In Greek mythology, Callisto was a nymph, and one of the followers of Artemis (Diana for the Romans) who attracted Zeus. According to some writers, Zeus transformed himself into the figure of Artemis to lure Callisto and seduce her. She became pregnant and when this was eventually discovered, she was expelled from Artemis's group, after which a furious Hera, the wife of Zeus, transformed her into a bear. Later, just as she was about to be killed by her son when he was hunting, she was set among the stars as Ursa Major ("the Great Bear"). She was the bear-mother of the Arcadians, through her son Arcas by Zeus. More on Callisto
Joseph Heintz the Elder (1564–1609)
The Fall of Phaeton, c. 1596
Oil on wood
122.5 x 66.5 cms | 48 x 26 ins
Museum der Bildenden Kunste, Leipzig, Germany
Phaethon, the son of the Oceanid Clymene and the sun god Helios, challenged by Epaphus and his playmates, sought assurance from his mother that his father was the sun god Helios. She gave him the requested assurance and told him to turn to his father for confirmation. He asked his father for some proof that would demonstrate his relationship with the sun. When the god promised to grant him whatever he wanted, he insisted on being allowed to drive the sun chariot for a day. According to some accounts Helios tried to dissuade Phaethon, telling him that even Zeus was not strong enough to steer these horses, but reluctantly kept his promise. Placed in charge of the chariot, Phaethon was unable to control the horses. In some versions, the Earth first froze when the horses climbed too high, but when the chariot then scorched the Earth by swinging too near, Zeus decided to prevent disaster by striking it down with a thunderbolt. Phaethon fell to earth and was killed in the process. More on Phaethon
Joseph Heintz the Elder
Leda and the Swan, c. 1605
Oil on copperplate
45 x 37 cm
Private collection
Leda, in Greek legend, usually believed to be the daughter of Thestius, king of Aetolia, and wife of Tyndareus, king of Lacedaemon. She was also believed to have been the mother (by Zeus, who had approached and seduced her in the form of a swan) of the other twin, Pollux, and of Helen, both of whom hatched from eggs. Variant legends gave divine parentage to both the twins and possibly also to Clytemnestra, with all three of them having hatched from the eggs of Leda, while yet other legends say that Leda bore the twins to her mortal husband, Tyndareus. Still other variants say that Leda may have hatched out Helen from an egg laid by the goddess Nemesis, who was similarly approached by Zeus in the form of a swan.The divine swan’s encounter with Leda was a subject depicted by both ancient Greek and Italian Renaissance artists; Leonardo da Vinci undertook a painting (now lost) of the theme, and Correggio’s Leda (c. 1530s) is a well-known treatment of the subject. More Leda and The Swan
Joseph Heintz the Elder
Leda and the Swan, c. 1605
Preparatory sketch
I have no further description, at this time
Leda and the Swan by Joseph Heintz the Elder (Basel 1564 – 1609 Prague) was lost for centuries and only recently rediscovered. The artist worked at the imperial court from 1591, and, as the date below his monogram tells us, he produced this painting in 1605 for Emperor Rudolf II (ruled 1576 – 1612). The Habsburg monarch resided at Prague and had a penchant for erotic-mythological subject matters. More on this painting
Attributed to Joseph Heintz the Elder
Glauco and the sorceress Circe
Oil on Canvas
50 X 41 cm
Private collection
In Greek mythology, Glaucus was a Greek prophetic sea-god, born mortal and turned immortal upon eating a magical herb. It was believed that he came to the rescue of sailors and fishermen in storms, having earlier earned a living from the sea himself.
Like those of most of the characters in Greek mythology Glaucus very numerous, but the best known is the one that starred alongside the Nymph Scylla and the witch Circe . Glauco was in love with the nymph Scylla, but after his transformation by Triton, she rejected it, horrified by his new appearance. Glaucus went to the witch Circe to provide him with a potion that would make him recover his lost love. Contrary to expectations, Circe did not help him because she fell in love with him. Glaucus rejected her and she retaliated by poisoning the water in which Scylla was bathing and turned her into a monstrous being with six dog heads. More on Glauco and the sorceress Circe
He next settled in Bohemia in 1591, and was at once appointed court painter to Rudolf II, but he remained in Prague for two years only, as in 1593 he was commissioned to make some copies from the antique for the emperor, and for that purpose went to Rome, where he spent some years. In 1604 we hear of him in Augsburg, and from the time we know little of his history, until his decease is recorded in a village near Prague. He was buried at the graveyard of the church of St John the Baptist in the Lesser Town of Prague.
Heintz's paintings included religious images, portraits, and, following the emperor's taste, erotic mythological themes. They were at one time in high demand, but later on suffered an eclipse. Among them are a family portrait in Bern and that of Rudolf II in Vienna. He was constantly investigating subtle questions of light, and almost all of his landscapes show the interest he took in this technical matter. A notable work by him is the Rape of Proserpine (See top), which hangs in the Dresden Gallery, and was engraved by Lukas Kilian; in the same gallery are two other works, Lot and His Daughters and Ecce Homo. Finally there is his portrait of Constance of Austria. He had a son Joseph, who signed with the same name, and who painted a few religious pictures; several of these works hitherto attributed to the son are now believed to be late productions by the father. More on Joseph Heintz the Elder
Joseph Heintz the Elder Ä. (1564 Basel - 1609 Prague)
Salome with the head Johannes d. Baptist, c. around 1600/1605
Oak wood
86.1 cm × 59.9 cm × 2 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, picture gallery
To complement his great collection of old German painting, Emperor Rudolf II did not shy away from copies or sensitive new creations. The "Salome" painted by Joseph Heintz is a reinterpretation of the "Judith" Cranachs the Elder (See below). The severed head is now arranged on a plate, the sword is missing and the image format and details of the clothing have been changed. In terms of color, Heintz succeeded in closely following Cranach's, but his painting is smoother and more painterly. More on this painting
Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Judith with the Head of Holofernes, ca. 1530
Oil on linden
35 1/4 x 24 3/8 in. (89.5 x 61.9 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Jewish heroine Judith presents the severed head of the Assyrian general who besieged her city, having seduced and then beheaded him with his own sword. Appropriately, she is "dressed to kill" and wears an elaborate contemporary costume that would have appealed to Cranach’s courtly patrons. The painter and his workshop produced several versions of this successful composition, which contrasts the gruesome head and the serene beauty of the biblical heroine. At the lower right is Cranach's insignia: a crowned winged serpent with a ring in its mouth. More on this painting
After the composition of Joseph Heintz the Elder
The Lamentation, c. 1628
Oil on canvas
132 × 96.5 cm
Szépművészeti Múzeum
The Lamentation of Christ is a very common subject in Christian art from the High Middle Ages to the Baroque. After Jesus was crucified, his body was removed from the cross and his friends mourned over his body. This event has been depicted by many different artists.
Lamentation works are very often included in cycles of the Life of Christ, and also form the subject of many individual works. One specific type of Lamentation depicts only Jesus' mother Mary cradling his body. These are known as Pietà (Italian for "pity") More The Lamentation of Christ
After Joseph Heintz the Elder (German/Swiss, 1564–1609)
The Entombment
Oil on copper
43.4 x 33.4 cm. (17.1 x 13.1 in.)
Private collection
The burial of Jesus refers to the burial of the body of Jesus after crucifixion, described in the New Testament. According to the canonical gospel accounts, he was placed in a tomb by a man named Joseph of Arimathea. In art, it is often called the Entombment of Christ. More on The Entombment
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