Puerco encantado

Title

Puerco encantado

Period

1550-1600;

Geographic

Italy

Latium

Description

This engraving illustrates Picus, the King of Latium, chasing after a boar during a hunt. While on his hunt, the goddess Circe had caught sight of Picus and fell in love with him. He had been riding on his horse (illustrated in the background with his companions) and she could not catch up to him. Circe had conjured up an illusion of a pig which ran into the woods, which resulted in Picus getting off his horse to chase after it. The boar is pictured on the left-hand side of the engraving, running into the trees. Circe is depicted with her arms around Picus as she confesses her love to him. Unfortunately for Circe, Picus was in love with a nymph named Canens, and rejected her advances. She ends up transforming Picus into a woodpecker and turns his companions into animals.

Image Creator

Virgil Solis (Engraver)

Type

Text

Woodcut Engraving

Identifier

mta:11872

Language

spa

Source Name

Las Transformaciones de Ovidio en lengua Española, repartidas en quinze libros, con las Allegorias al fin dellos, y sus figuras, para prouecho de los Artifices [The Transformations of Ovid in the Spanish language, distributed in fifteen books, with the allegories at the end of them and their figures, for the benefit of the creators]

Parent Collection

Las Transformaciones de Ovidio en lengua Española. Woodcut engravings by Virgil Solis (1595)

Image

mta_11872_OBJ.jpg

Collection

Ovid's Metamorphoses

Subject

Nymphs

Goddesses

Roman Mythology

Greek Mythology

Unrequited Love

Transformation