Orpheus and Eurydice

c. 1515

Peter Vischer the Younger

Sculptor, German, 1487 - 1528

A man and woman, both nude, stand on a rocky ground in this vertical, rectangular bronze plaque. The woman is to our left. She stands with most of her weight on her left foot, to our right and closer to the man. She holds fluttering drapery down by her side with her right hand, to our left, and lifts the other, palm up, toward the man. Her head tips to our right and a breeze lifts her long hair as she looks at the man. She stands in front of a rocky cliff face that fills the left third of the composition. To our right, the man stands with his body angled slightly in that direction. He is muscular and has short hair. He holds a violin-like instrument by the neck and facing out from his body, down in front of one hip. He looks over one shoulder at the woman. A hole pierces the top center of the plaque, and a symbol cast in the top right corner shows two back-to-back crescent-shaped fish pierced by a dagger.

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On View

NGA, West Building, G-013-A

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    bronze//Black lacquer (slightly rubbed on raised areas) over medium brown bronze

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 19.3 x 14.9 cm (7 5/8 x 5 7/8 in.) gross weight: 1129 gr

  • Accession

    1957.14.565

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Gustave Dreyfus [1837-1914], Paris; his estate; purchased 1930 by (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York); purchased 1945 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York; gift 1957 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1986

  • Gothic and Renaissance Art in Nuremberg, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, Federal Republic of Germany, 1986, no. 193.

Bibliography

1931

  • Ricci, Seymour de. The Gustave Dreyfus Collection. Reliefs and Plaquettes. Oxford, 1931. vol.II, 431.

1957

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 42.

1961

  • Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings & Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961: 88, color repro.

1965

  • Pope-Hennessy, John W. Renaissance Bronzes from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Reliefs, Plaquettes, Statuettes, Utensils and Mortars. London, 1965: no. 435.

1983

  • Wilson, Carolyn C. Renaissance Small Bronze Sculpture and Associated Decorative Arts at the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1983: 157, no. 1.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 634, no. 992, repro.

2005

  • Spicer, Joaneath. "An "Antique" Brass Candlestick in the Shape of Hercules by Peter Vischer the Youngerand Workshop." The Journal of the Walters Art Museum 63 (2005): 65, 67 fig. 4, 70 n. 5.

Inscriptions

upper right artist's device: (two fish transfixed by an arrow)

Wikidata ID

Q63815121

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