History of Pan

HENDRICK GOLTZIUS (1558-1617) (drawing and engraving);

FRANCO ESTIUS (active between 1545-1594) (verses);

VISSCHER (editor)

Print of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Haarlem, 1589-1615.

Good condition. Full margins. From a Spanish collector from the XVII century.

Ref.: Bartsch III, 0302.31-70.

Related to the universe of Artemis we find the demigod Pan, divinity of shepherds, fertility and male sexuality.

Pan was said to have had an affair with Selene in Arcadia. But more frequent and famous were his unrequited loves for nymphs. His unrequited love for the nymph Syringa is known, who, fleeing from him, was transformed into a cane field. From those reeds the god would create the instrument of the same name, the Syringe.

The attributes of Bread were recovered for very different purposes by the Christian cult. The horned and lubricious god worshiped by the pagans who celebrated the living forces of nature was converted into the image of the devil himself, a being of a dark and evil sign.