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Circe and Ulysses

Maker

(artist)
1523-1605

Title

Circe and Ulysses

Date of Production

(circa) 1596

Medium

pen and brown ink, blue wash, white bodycolour on laid paper, with brown ink framing lines, laid down on a historic support

Dimensions

Height: 19.4 cm
Width: 27.8 cm

Accession Number

D.1952.RW.2395

Mode of Acquisition

Robert Clermont Witt, bequest, 1952

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

This is one in a set of twelve highly finished drawings depicting the adventures of Ulysses. They were likely designs intended to illustrate a printed edition of the Odyssey, but no engravings after them are known. Unusually, Stradanus wrote his own explanatory caption below the scene in Flemish, rather than copying a passage from the original text. His inscription describes the scene, which shows Circe, the sorceress, tempting Ulysses to drink a potion that would transform him into an animal. Some of her victims roam in the landscape on the right.

Provenance

Prince Wladimir Nikolaevitch Argoutinsky-Dolgoroukoff, Paris (1875-1941), L.2602d; probably his sale, R.W.P. de Vries (Amsterdam), 27 March 1925; probably purchased there by Christiaan van der Feer Ladèr, Baarn (1886-1951), L.1028a; Harris; purchased from him by Sir Robert Witt, London (1872-1952), n.d. (£11); Witt Bequest 1952

Exhibition History

Drawings Gallery Display - Reading Drawings, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 21/01/2017-04/06/2017

Literature

Baroni, Alessandra and Manfred Sellink et al., Stradanus 1523-1605: court artist of the Medici, Turnhout, 2012
p. 333

Baroni Vannucci, Alessandra, Jan van der Straet detto Giovanni Stradano: flandrus pictor et inventor, Milan, 1997
no. 181 on p. 217
ill. on p. 217

Blunt, Anthony, Hand-list of the drawings in the Witt Collection, London, 1956
p. 131

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: none.

Inscription: Recto: lower centre, brown ink, artist's hand: "7 circes ghaf te drinken ulisse met den scalle en tasten hem met de setter […] hem te doen veranderen in beste gheleck zij ghedaen adde an" [the following one or two lines are missing]; lower right, brown ink, signed by the artist: "gioa strada". Verso (backing sheet): upper right of centre, graphite: “6-H”; lower right corner, graphite, underlined: “363”.

Collector's mark: Verso (backing sheet): lower right, stamped in black ink: Prince Wladimir Nikolaevitch Argoutinsky-Dolgoroukoff (L.2602d); lower right, stamped in purple ink: Christiaan van der Feer Ladèr (L.1028a). Removed but still mounted with the drawing: Sir Robert Witt (L.2228b).

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