Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

The Metropolitan Museum of Art


    • Orpheus and Eurydice, ca. 1505–6
    Marcantonio Raimondi (Italian, ca. 1480–before 1534)
    Engraving; undescribed second state

    sheet 5 1/16 x 3 7/8 in. (12.9 x 9.8 cm)
    The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1956 (56.581.12)

    Marcantonio has depicted the famed musician Orpheus, son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope, accompanied by his beloved Eurydice, who had been fatally bitten by a snake on their wedding day. The inconsolable groom descended to Hades, land of the dead, where his singing and lyre playing so charmed Pluto and Proserpina that he was allowed to lead Eurydice out of the Underworld. The moment shown may be when Eurydice, "limping a little, from her late wound," as Ovid tells us, was returned to Orpheus (Metamorphoses 10.49).

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    This work has been published in the Museum's Bulletin or Journal. These articles may or may not represent the most current scholarship.
  • Thompson, Wendy. "Poets, Lovers, and Heroes in Italian Mythological Prints." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 61, no. 3 (Winter, 2004).
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  • Orpheus and Eurydice, ca. 1505–6
    Marcantonio Raimondi (Italian, ca. 1480–before 1534)
    Engraving; undescribed second state

    sheet 5 1/16 x 3 7/8 in. (12.9 x 9.8 cm)
    The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1956 (56.581.12)