The Sixth Day (Dies VI), from The Creation of the World, a series of title and six plates

In 1589 Jan Muller, son of the Amsterdam book printer, engraver, and publisher, was a member of or working in Hendrick Goltzius’s workshop in Haarlem. During that time, he engraved a series of prints depicting the creation of the world after designs by Goltzius, the premier draftsman and printmaker in the northern Netherlands. Although some preliminary sketches for the series still exist, the finished designs are now lost.


The series itself is extraordinary. Rather than following the centuries old traditional representations of the seven days of creation, based on the Book of Genesis, Goltzius looked instead to classical mythology for his imagery. It is often suggested that he was inspired by Ovid, the first century Latin poet, who describes the creation at the beginning of The Metamorphoses, his long poem about the gods and humankind.


Day Six is much more traditional in approach than the other prints in this series. As in the titlepage, the robed and bearded figure of God the Father is shown wrapped in heavenly clouds. He has just finished creating Eve, who stands before him, while Adam is curled up on a rock, sleeping. A later scene of Adam given dominion over the animals is shown in the background at the right.