Attributed to Giulio Campagnola
Italian, c. 1482-1515/18
The Penance of Saint John Chrysostom
INV-6851
Attributed to Giulio Campagnola
Italian, c. 1482-1515/18c. 1510
The Penance of Saint John Chrysostom
Attributed to Giulio Campagnola Italian, c. 1482-1515/18 →engravingprint
Date
c. 1510
Medium
Engraving on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Plate: 14.3 × 11.5 cm (5 11/16 × 4 9/16 in.); Sheet: 14.9 × 11.6 cm (5 7/8 × 4 5/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Clarence Buckingham Collection
This luminous unique impression suggests a more linear version of Campagnola’s dappled, early stipple engraving style, characterized by many small dots in different sizes, volumes, and shades. The composition tells an apocryphal legend of Saint John Chrysostom, in which the saint, living as a hermit, seduces and impregnates the daughter of an emperor. Shocked by his own actions, John throws the princess from a cliff and vows never to rise from the ground in penance for his misdeeds. After the princess and her child are miraculously discovered still alive, John’s sins are forgiven. In Campagnola’s composition, the princess and child are presented in the foreground while John is depicted walking on all fours in the background. The female nude is reminiscent of Campagnola’s Woman Reclining in a Landscape.
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