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Overview
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 and in this engraving, a scene from ancient history. His ornamental engravings were used as models by artists and craftsmen well into the 17th century, while his images of virtues and vices are well represented in Te Papa's collection.
This is a late engraving and like Faith (Te Papa 1869-0001-9), tragic drama and material splendour are convincingly packed into a print of intimate scale. The two figures are Sophonisba, a beautiful Carthaginian princess and Masinissa, leader of East Numidia (present-day Algeria). Despite being betrothed to Masinissa, Sophonisba was offered in a diplomatic alliance by her father Hasdrubal to King Syphax, ruler of Western Numidia, which led him into a ruinous alliance with, and then hostility to, Rome. This culminated in his defeat and capture by the Roman general Scipio Africanus, allied to Masinissa, in the Battle of the Great Plains (203 BC). Masinissa then fell in love with the captive Sophonisba, and married her. Scipio, however, opposed the marriage and insisted that she should be taken to Rome as a captive and be paraded in the victory triumph. To escape this humiliation, she committed suicide. Aldegrever depicts the moment before her death, accompanied by the grieving Masinissa who has fetched her poison. Sophonisba has been alternately portrayed as virtuous and heroic, and as a vain, proud temptress, faithless to Syphax. Aldegrever's print suggests that both interpretations have validity - her courage is evident, and so is her sexual allure.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Aldegrever
'Sophonisba', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophonisba
University of Melbourne print collection, http://gallery.its.unimelb.edu.au/umblprints/imu.php?request=dis play&port=45000&id=bb26&flag=start&offset=0&count=1&view=details&enarratives=on&irn=829
Dr Mark Stocker, Curator Historical International Art December 2016