GIOVANNI BENEDETTO CASTIGLIONE
28 Pan Reclining before a Large Vase.
1609 Genoa – Mantua 1665
Ca. 1645
Etching. 11.5 x 21.2 cm Bartsch 18/III; Bellini 12; Percy E10; T.I.B. 46 Commentary, 018
Very fine impression of the lyric-bucolic composition. With 5 mm margins around the platemark. Impeccable. The etching was executed as counterpart to Castiglione’s Satyr Resting beneath a Herm. The large vase and the herm of Priapus are interpretable as symbols of female and male fertility, while the panpipes on which the reclining pastoral god rests his hand allude suggestively to his unrequited love for the nymph Syrinx. Fleeing along the banks of the River Ladon from the drunken god, she is metamorphosed into reed grass, from which Pan forms the panpipes which he then names for her.
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