An image is not available here yet.
View at the museum ↗An Allegory of Statuary or Lament of Sculpture
Pierre Biard, II1629
- Attribution
- Pierre Biard, II French, 1592-1661
- Medium
- Etching in black on ivory laid paper
- Physical dimensions
- Image: 32.5 × 53 cm (12 13/16 × 20 7/8 in.); Sheet: 35.3 × 53.2 cm (13 15/16 × 21 in.)
- Credit line
- Everett D. Graff Fund and Henry M. Huxley Fund
Museum metadata is available under CC0. Image availability and rights are separate; consult the source record.
Source rights statement: Public domain
View the museum record ↗From the museum
Pierre Biard the Younger, who had became enamored with Italian art after a visit to Rome, was appointed the court sculptor of Henri IV in 1609. This idiosyncratic etching includes text in both French and Italian, as well as a double self-portrait of the artist (as the two male figures on the right). The allegorical figure of Calumny reappears from the ancient lost painting of the Calumny of Apelles. By explicitly referencing a painting in a print about sculpture, Biard may be staging his own paragone, a debate tradition dating from antiquity in which one art form was compared with another.
Description: Art Institute of Chicago · CC BY 4.0