Venus Reclining in a Landscape (c. 1508–9): Art, History and Details

Venus Reclining in a Landscape (c. 1508–9) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Giulio Campagnola (Italian, 1482–1515).

The work and its context

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

The Venetian artist Giulio Campagnola introduced the "dot manner," an engraving technique by which shading is created with dots and flicks produced with the point of the burin. This innovation allowed for a much greater range of tone and subtler gradations from dark to light. The effect imitated sfumato, a painting technique for creating soft atmospheric effects practiced by Venetian artists, such as Giorgione, at the time. The influence of and perhaps even the engraver’s collaboration with Giorgione is reflected in the extraordinary beauty and refinement of this rare early impression of Venus Reclining in a Landscape. The female nude reclining in a landscape was to become a distinctly Venetian subject in the 1500s.

Object facts

• Title: Venus Reclining in a Landscape
• Date: c. 1508–9
• Creator attribution: Giulio Campagnola (Italian, 1482–1515)
• Culture: Italy, late 15th-early 16th Century
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Platemark: 11.9 x 18.3 cm (4 11/16 x 7 3/16 in.); Sheet: 11.9 x 18.3 cm (4 11/16 x 7 3/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1931.205

A detail from the museum

This artist's training as a gem cutter prepared him well for the relatively new art of engraving, which required carving into a copperplate with a sharp instrument called a burin.

Collection credit

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland

Further reading listed by the museum

• "An Engraving by Giulio Campagnola." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 18, no. 9 (November 1931): 171-174
• Prasse, Leona. "An Engraving of 'St. John the Baptist' by Giulio Campagnola." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 22, no. 2 (February 1935): 15-18
• Meier, Henry, "Giulio Campagnola's 'Woman Reclining in a Landsacpe," and its Technique, Bulletin of the New York Public Library Vol. 46, No. 8 (August, 1942): 735-738.

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.