1594

The Punishment of Niobe

Dutch, c. 1565 - 1607

This print is not based directly on the wall painting by Polidoro da Caravaggio that it represents, but on drawings that the Haarlem artist Hendrick Goltzius made of the painting on a trip to Italy in 1590-91. Nonetheless, the engraving's deep contrasts of dark and light effectively imitate the surface of a sculptural frieze, just as Polidoro's original painting was meant to do. The image is taken from a classical myth about humbled pride. Niobe, wife of the king of Thebes, was punished for claiming that her seven sons and seven daughters were superior to Latona's mere two offspring, Apollo and Diana. The latter pair summarily slew all fourteen of Niobe's children. In this print, which reverses Polidoro's original composition, the gory event plays out across a ten-foot frieze with Niobe's refusal to honor Latona on the right, concluding in the killings on the left.