Pan and Syrinx (n.d.): Artwork and History

Pan and Syrinx (n.d.) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Unknown Artist Southern German, late 16th century.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Known for his lustful appetite, Pan preyed upon hapless nymphs. When Pan pursued her to a river’s edge, the skilled huntress Syrinx appealed to Artemis, goddess of chastity, who transformed her into the surrounding river reeds to save her. Pan’s frustrated sigh sounded across the hollow reeds, which he then fashioned into the set of pipes that became his attribute. This 16th-century German drawing references details from book one of Ovid’s Metamorphoses such as the quiver Syrinx grasps as she escapes: “When [Pan] thought he now had Syrinx, found that instead of the nymph’s body he only held reeds from the marsh; and, while he sighed there, the wind in the reeds, moving, gave out a clear, plaintive sound. Charmed by this new art and its sweet tones the god said ‘This way of communing with you is still left to me.’”

Object facts

• Title: Pan and Syrinx
• Date: n.d.
• Artist attribution: Unknown Artist Southern German, late 16th century
• Place of origin: Germany
• Medium: Pen and black ink on tan laid paper, tipped onto tinted laid paper
• Dimensions: 11.5 × 9.4 cm (4 9/16 × 3 3/4 in.)
• Type: Drawing and Watercolor
• Department: Prints and Drawings
• Reference number: 1922.3508

Collection credit

The Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection

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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.