Envy (1593): Art, History and Details

Envy (1593) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jacob Matham (Dutch, 1571–1631); Hendrick Goltzius (Dutch, 1558–1617).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In this print, which comes from a series of fourteen engravings, Envy is shown as an old hag eating a heart, a visual metaphor for the expression "eating your heart out" with resentment. Jacob Matham was Goltzius's stepson and pupil and entered his Haarlem workshop in 1581. A highly prolific engraver, Matham produced prints after artists including Michelangelo, Raphael, Abraham Bloemaert (1564–1651), and especially Goltzius. When Goltzius ceased his activities as a printmaker around 1600, Matham took over the workshop.

Object facts

• Title: Envy
• Date: 1593
• Creator attribution: Jacob Matham (Dutch, 1571–1631); Hendrick Goltzius (Dutch, 1558–1617)
• Culture: Netherlands, 16th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Sheet: 33.2 x 17.7 cm (13 1/16 x 6 15/16 in.); Platemark: 32 x 16.3 cm (12 5/8 x 6 7/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1991.251

Collection credit

Seventy-fifth anniversary gift of Louise S. Richards

Further reading listed by the museum

• Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1992.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 2 (February 1993): 38–79.
• Petrella, Sara. Quand les Dieux Etaient des Monstres: La Mythologie Hybride de Natale Conti et Vincenzo Cartari. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2022.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.