An Allegory of Abundance (c. 1515): Artwork and History

An Allegory of Abundance (c. 1515) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Cristofano Robetta Italian, 1462-c.1535.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

This engraving depicts a seated female figure holding a staff surmounted by an urn filled with flowers, fruit, and wheat, similar to the urn traditionally held by Ceres, the Roman goddess of the harvest. The child grasping the figure’s breast in a fertility gesture suggests an alternate identity, that of the earth goddess Tellus. Robetta rendered the rocky terrain with heavy clusters of undulating curves, a technique likely inspired by early-16th-century engravings by Albrecht Dürer. The cartelliño suspended from the tree originally held the artist’s signature, but this was scored through before an impression had been printed for some unknown reason.

Object facts

• Title: An Allegory of Abundance
• Date: c. 1515
• Artist attribution: Cristofano Robetta Italian, 1462-c.1535
• Place of origin: Italy
• Medium: Engraving in black on cream laid paper
• Dimensions: Image: 25.2 × 18.3 cm (9 15/16 × 7 1/4 in.); Plate/sheet: 25.6 × 18.5 cm (10 1/8 × 7 5/16 in.)
• Type: Print
• Department: Prints and Drawings
• Reference number: 1956.1042

Collection credit

Bequest of Mrs. Potter Palmer, Jr.

View the original

Explore the artwork in the Art Institute's collection, including its image and the museum's current catalogue details.

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.