Artwork Page for The Power of Women: The Poet Virgil Suspended in a Basket

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The Power of Women: The Poet Virgil Suspended in a Basket

c. 1512

Lucas van Leyden

(Netherlandish, 1494–about 1533)
Culture
Netherlands, 16th century
Medium
woodcut
Credit Line
Gift of the Print Club of Cleveland in memory of Charles T. Brooks 1935.116
Catalogue raisonné
Hollstein 89
State
I/II
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print

Description

This woodcut is from a series depicting the power of women, a popular early 16th-century theme. The series highlights a woman’s capacity to use beauty, charm, and ruse to thwart even the cleverest men. Here, Van Leyden illustrated the cunning of the Roman emperor’s daughter. According to legend, the poet Virgil fell in love with the maiden, but she objected and punished him for his impudence. After promising to raise Virgil to her bedroom window in a basket, she left him hanging halfway. The printmaker omitted the emperor’s daughter from the scene but added the woman advising her son against such folly.
A vertically oriented print in fine black-inked lines depicts a town square. High above, a man sits in a basket hanging from a building corner. Below, a crowd gathers; a central figure points upward while another stands with their back to us on the right. In the foreground, a thin dog sniffs the ground. Detailed buildings and birds in flight fill the background.

The Power of Women: The Poet Virgil Suspended in a Basket

c. 1512

Lucas van Leyden

(Netherlandish, 1494–about 1533)
Netherlands, 16th century

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