The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 25, 2025

Victory Surrounded by Prisoners and Trophies

1552

Frans Floris the Elder

(Flemish, 1509–1570)
publisher

Hieronymus Cock

Netherlands, 16th century
etching with engraving
Image: 31.7 x 44 cm (12 1/2 x 17 5/16 in.); Sheet: 31.7 x 44 cm (12 1/2 x 17 5/16 in.)
Carole W. and Charles B. Rosenblatt Endowment Fund 2020.224
Catalogue raisonné: Hollstein 4
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

This is the only etching that the Northern Renaissance painter Frans Floris ever made.

Description

In Victory Surrounded by Prisoners and Trophies, Frans Floris portrayed a standing female figure in the center, the personification of Victory, surrounded by a multitude of nudes and trophies (or spoils of war), which she has vanquished. The nudes were inspired by Roman friezes as well as figures that Floris had studied on Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes during an extended trip to Italy in the 1540s. The etching is based on a painted composition (now lost) that Floris made a few years earlier to adorn a triumphal arch, one of numerous ephemeral arches featured in festive decorations throughout the city mounted for the visit of Charles V and the future Philip II in 1549.
  • December 10, 2019
    (Christie's, London, United Kingdom)
    (C.G. Boerner, New York, NY)
    September 14, 2020
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Graphische Sammlung Albertina, and Konrad Oberhuber. Zwischen Renaissance und Barock. Das Zeitalter von Bruegel und Bellange. 1967. no. 102
    Velde, C van de. Frans Floris 1519/20–1570): Leven en Werken, Brussels 1975. no. 30 www.jstor.org
    Jacoby, Joachim W., et al. The New Hollstein: German Engravings, Etchings and Woodcuts, 1400-1700. 1996.
    Cole, Michael Wayne. The Early Modern Painter-Etcher. University Park, Penn: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006. no. 7
    Grieken, Joris van, Ger Luijten, and Jan van der Stock. Hieronymus Cock: The Renaissance in Print. Brussels, Belgium: Mercatorfonds, 2013. no. 86
    Jenkins, Catherine, et al. The renaissance of etching. 2019. no. 119
  • {{cite web|title=Victory Surrounded by Prisoners and Trophies|url=false|author=Frans Floris the Elder, Hieronymus Cock|year=1552|access-date=25 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2020.224