Cronus1.0022_Goltzius

Hendrik Goltzius (1558-1617), "Saturn as Protector of Agriculture" (1596), drawing, composition for print in "Seven Planets" series. Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam, inv. 1905-A62. Engraved by Jan Saendam = Bartsch no. 73. Variant, for second ("small") series, 1597. Original drawing unlocated. Engraved by Jacob Matham (1588-1617) = Bartsch no. 149. In 4 states. London, South Kensington, Victoria and Albert Museum, acc. no. 22774:1. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, acc. no. 1980.45.1932.

In Goltzius' engraving an unknown statue of "Saturn", the old Titan begins to eat one of his children alive. The scythe in his right hand is the fateful blade with which the god once castrated his father Uranus.

After the Olympian gods deposed their tyrannical father, Saturn (or in Greek, Cronus/Kronos), they relegated him far from Olympus to the western land of the evening sun, Hesperia, where he continued to live as an agrarian divinity. Consequently, Roman cult later syncretized the archaic rustic deity of Italy, Saturn, with the Greek Cronus.

The inscriptions near the figure's feet identify H. Goltzius as the original designer and J. Matham as the engraver of this plate.

Bibliography offered by Reid:

Strauss (1977a), no. 289.
Bartsch (1980-82), no. 256.

Léna Widerkehr (1996), The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700: Jacob Matham (Rotterdam: Sound & Vision Interactive) no. 204, state i/iii.