The Second Day (Dies II): The Division of the Waters, plate 2 from "The Creation of the World"

In 1589 Jan Muller, son of the Amsterdam book printer, engraver, and publisher, was in a member of or working 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.


The same genius (a mythological figure similar in appearance to an angel) who appeared in Day One now separates the Waters. The older bearded figure wearing a headdress made of shells is a traditional representation of a sea god, but the young woman at the right is more unusual. She is perched on a cloud, one hand resting on a rainbow and the other holding a vessel pierced with small holes from which water drains. The sea god is symbolic of the waters of the earth, and she is a representation of the waters from the heavens – rain, snow, etc. Given the prominence of the rainbow, she might be the Greek goddess Iris, who was the goddess of the rainbow and also a messenger of the gods.