Aeneas Carrying His Father, Anchises (1643): Artwork and History

Aeneas Carrying His Father, Anchises (1643) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Ludolph Büsinck (German, 1599/1602–1669) after Georges Lallemand (French, 1575–1636).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Like Goltzius, though less dynamic in his execution, Ludolph Büsinck used the chiaroscuro woodcut technique to depict Aeneas fleeing Troy as it burns while shouldering his elderly father, Anchises. An interesting feature of this print is the correction made in the face of Aeneus’s son Ascanius, in the lower right of the composition. A plug was used to replace a section of the original woodblock, perhaps to reorient the face of the child toward the central action of the scene. Since all known impressions of this print include the same change, the preliminary version of this passage remains a mystery.

Object facts

• Title: Aeneas Carrying His Father, Anchises
• Date: 1643
• Artist attribution: Ludolph Büsinck (German, 1599/1602–1669) after Georges Lallemand (French, 1575–1636)
• Place of origin: Germany
• Medium: Chiaroscuro woodcut from two blocks in black and beige on ivory laid paper
• Dimensions: Border: 34.8 × 21.8 cm (13 3/4 × 8 5/8 in.); Sheet: 35.4 × 22.3 cm (13 15/16 × 8 13/16 in.)
• Type: Print
• Department: Prints and Drawings
• Reference number: 1960.839

Collection credit

Gift of Marie Louise Pritchard

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.