Allegory of America, from the Four Continents

Godfried Maes Flemish

Not on view

This unusual male allegorical figure of the New World belongs to a set of drawings of Allegories of the Four Continents. The drawings likely served as preliminary designs for tapestries. The other three allegorical figures are represented as women; and, the tapestries and related paintings include a female figure of America as well. Maes’s allegory of America follows a visual tradition which derives from the Italian humanist Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia (1603). As seen in Ripa, Maes shows America wearing a feather headdress, carrying a bow and arrow, and stalked by an alligator. In the bottom register are a tropical parrot and a putto wearing a gold-filled pack and smoking tobacco, popular imports from the New World.

Allegory of America, from the Four Continents, Godfried Maes (Antwerp 1649–1700 Antwerp), Pen and gray ink, brush and gray wash, over black chalk

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