| Clio | |
| Artist: | Hendrik Goltzius |
| Year: | 1592 |
Hendrik Goltzius' engraving of Clio is the fourth in his series on the nine Muses, and was executed in 1592.
The engraving depicts the Greek muse of history seated, holding a pen in her right hand and a tablet and inkwell in her left, with two books at her feet.[1] She is drawn, wrote historian Natalie Zemon Davis, "with a faint smile, perhaps ironic, certainly detached. From this picture, it is only a short step to some Renaissance representations of History as a winged woman writing, her white garb signifying that she bears witness to truth as well as to renown."[2]
Four lines about Clio, in Latin hexameter by 16th-century Dutch poet Franco van Est (Franco Estius), form a caption at the bottom of the engraving.They read:Or, in an approximate translation into English,
The series was printed in folio size, and was dedicated to Goltzius's friend and fellow engraver Jan Sadeler.[3] It was one of several series of engravings that Goltzius made upon returning to his home in Haarlem after spending the years 1590–1591 studying art in Italy,[4] where he came under the influence of a school of engraving founded by his fellow Dutchman Cornelis Cort.[5]
Prints of the work are held by the Dutch Rijksmuseum,[6] the British Museum,[7] the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.),[8] the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,[9] and the Harvard Art Museums.[10] The engraving has been printed in five different states; the British Museum has the second state, for instance,[7] while the Harvard Art Museums have the third.[10]
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich has proposed Goltzius' figure as an inspiration for Daniel Chester French's 1884 bronze John Harvard, which shows John Harvard in a similar pose and with similar accoutrements.[11]