Envy. From: The Vices.

Heinrich Aldegrever was one of the so-called 'Little Masters', a group of German artists making small prints in the generation after Albrecht Dürer, who included Hans Baldung Grien, the Beham brothers and Georg Pencz. The close resemblance of his work to that of Dürer led to Aldegrever being called the 'Albert of Westphalia', although his style went on to depart from his mentor's intricate line work to stress the optical effects of light and shadow. He became a Lutheran convert in 1531, but continued to depict religious themes, while his ornamental engravings were used as models by artists and craftsmen well into the 17th century. His images of virtues and vices were so popular that Aldegrever made cycles of both in 1549 (not yet represented in the collection) and, here, 1552. Te Papa owns the complete cycle of virtues and vices, all acquired in 1978. These complement several Aldegrever prints in the foundation art collection, presented to the Colonial Museum, forerunner of Te Papa, in 1869 by Bishop Ditlev Monrad.

Envy (Invidia) is an engraving in the cycle of allegorical depictions of the Vices or the Seven Deadly Sins (counterparts to the Seven Virtues), based on biblical numerical symbolism and Christian moral metaphor. The rich artistic symbolism vividly depicts a horrible, still beautiful, female personification, with an indecent open-legged pose on the back of a monster that looks like a cross between a goat, porcupine and dragon (note the tail). The latter rather obscenely leers directly at the viewer. Making a similar point are the entwined snakes on the flag and the scorpion on the heraldic shield. These are animals which, like sin, poison humanity. The bat is a symbol of the blindness and self-deception caused by envy. The inscription at the base reads: 'Squalida liuoris facies pallore voracis. / Sat genus interni, detegit omne mali'. ('A squalid appearance with the pallor of voracious envy reveals all malice'). Invidia herself looks intently into the distance: clearly she has seen something or someone that she envies. Stylistically, the optical effects of this print are superbly allied to the squalid and malicious theme.

The great German writer J. W. von Goethe owned a copy of this engraving.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Aldegrever

 'Envy', National Museum of Slovenia, https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/asset/envy/lAETjXrv9vOBXw

Dr Mark Stocker, Curator Historical International Art                       December 2016