A timely warning
The pictorial inventions of Albrecht Dürer and other artists of the period around 1500 such as Veit Stoss experienced a notable renaissance during the 17th century. The primarily religious pictorial motifs, disseminated through prints, were taken as prototypes and reinterpreted. Along with their value as “Old Masters,” the targeted recourse to the arts in the service of the church before the schism of the Reformation surely also played a role.
Title:
Dead Christ
Artist:
Zacharias Hegewald (1596 Chemnitz - 1639 Dresden)
Time:
ca. 1630
During his lifetime Georg Petel, who was born in Weilheim in Upper Bavaria, visited among other places Antwerp, Paris, Genoa, and Rome. After his wanderings he settled down in Augsburg, which at the time was a leading exporter of handcrafted luxury goods
Petel was close friends with the most famous painter of the Baroque north of the Alps, Peter Paul Rubens.
Ruben’s example and aesthetic inspired the motifs that wind and twist without end around the vessel. At the centre stands the drunken Silenus, goat-legged satyrs, male and female, struggle to prop him up. Music and dance heighten the collective delirium. Those who indulge to excess risk stultification, coarsening, and inopportune lust.
The artistic interpretation echoes these themes rather than merely soberly representing them. Ivory is a luxurious material; the intertwined, forceful sculptural forms, naturalistic surfaces, and uncompromisingly realistic figures adorn this magnificent drinking vessel.
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