The Fall of Phaeton

Michelangelo gave a finished drawing of the Fall of Phaeton to his close friend Tommaso de’ Cavalieri in 1533. Almost immediately, copies of the drawing were made in the form of plaques and prints without direct involvement from Michelangelo himself. This engraving by a French artist working in Rome closely follows Michelangelo’s composition for the scene but adds landscape elements in the background. In this myth from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Phaeton, son of the sun-god Helios, drives his father’s chariot across the sky but loses control, endangering the earth. Zeus intercedes to kill him with a thunderbolt. Below, Phaeton’s mourning sisters transform into trees.

A vertically oriented engraving in black ink depicts a three-tiered scene. At the top, a figure sits on an eagle amidst clouds. In the center, four horses and a man tumble downward with a wooden chariot. On the riverbank below, a reclining bearded man pours water from a vessel while two figures clutch their heads. A woman on the right reaches toward a large swan, with a distant town on a cliffside.

The Fall of Phaeton

c. 1545

Nicolas Beatrizet, Michelangelo Buonarroti

(French, active Italy, 1507 or 1515-about 1565), (Italian, 1475–1564)

France, 16th century

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