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拍品专文
The interpretation of this enigmatic etching as the Abduction of Proserpina is still the most plausible one, although Dürer - as so often - strayed from the textual and iconographic tradition. According to Homer and Ovid, Proserpina or Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, was abducted by Pluto on his chariot and taken to the underworld. In Dürer's version however, a woman is carried away by a naked wild man on a unicorn. In another engraving, Coat of Arms with a Skull (Meder 98) the wild man is clearly associated with Death, and the identification of the abductor as Pluto is therefore quite plausible.
In the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the unicorn - traditionally a symbol of purity, chastity and occasionally even adopted by Christians as the symbol of Christ himself - began to assume the opposite connotation. In Jacopo da Voragine's Golden Legend, the unicorn becomes the figure of Death; in a French Book of Hours Death is shown astride a unicorn. The unicorn, here bolted and depicted as a lustful creature, is quite fitting as the vehicle of the abduction. Dürer's invention borrows various elements from medieval imagery, adding a darker overtone.
It is instructive to compare the Abduction of Proserpina with another scene of abduction in Dürer's oeuvre, the Seamonster (Meder 66), an engraving whose overall character is calm and sculptural, in line with the precision of the medium, and the victim expresses a nonchalant detachment as she is being carried off across the water of the lake or bay. In the present print, Dürer uses the immediacy of the etching medium to dramatise the scene and to depict the abduction as an act of violence, full of movement and drama. The voluptuous woman, her eyes wide open, stretches her body to resist the firm, muscular grip of the wild man. The artist 'displays his mastery of the etching technique, making use of line structures familiar to him from his work in engraving, woodcut, and drawings. Precise contours define the individual forms, to which meticulously placed, parallel curved hatchings and crosshatchings lend three-dimensionality, volume and substance.' (C. Metzger, in: C. Jenkins, N. Orenstein, F. Spira, The Renaissance of Etching, 2019, p. 52-52, no. 18).
In the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the unicorn - traditionally a symbol of purity, chastity and occasionally even adopted by Christians as the symbol of Christ himself - began to assume the opposite connotation. In Jacopo da Voragine's Golden Legend, the unicorn becomes the figure of Death; in a French Book of Hours Death is shown astride a unicorn. The unicorn, here bolted and depicted as a lustful creature, is quite fitting as the vehicle of the abduction. Dürer's invention borrows various elements from medieval imagery, adding a darker overtone.
It is instructive to compare the Abduction of Proserpina with another scene of abduction in Dürer's oeuvre, the Seamonster (Meder 66), an engraving whose overall character is calm and sculptural, in line with the precision of the medium, and the victim expresses a nonchalant detachment as she is being carried off across the water of the lake or bay. In the present print, Dürer uses the immediacy of the etching medium to dramatise the scene and to depict the abduction as an act of violence, full of movement and drama. The voluptuous woman, her eyes wide open, stretches her body to resist the firm, muscular grip of the wild man. The artist 'displays his mastery of the etching technique, making use of line structures familiar to him from his work in engraving, woodcut, and drawings. Precise contours define the individual forms, to which meticulously placed, parallel curved hatchings and crosshatchings lend three-dimensionality, volume and substance.' (C. Metzger, in: C. Jenkins, N. Orenstein, F. Spira, The Renaissance of Etching, 2019, p. 52-52, no. 18).