VIRGIL SOLIS
Nuremberg 1514 – 1562 Nuremberg
Solis ran a print workshop in Nuremberg from at least 1534,
which produced over 2000 single sheet prints.
Without making direct copies, Solis often borrowed motifs
and compositional details from other artists such as Dürer,
Beham, Pencz and others.
However, though popular in Medieval times, The Four Temperaments was an uncommon theme with Renaissance artists, who tended to focus
on the single figure of Melancholy.
Solis has directly adapted two of Pencz’s female personifications,
those of Grammar and Dialectica, from Pencz’s set of The Seven Liberal Arts,
for his own Sanguinuse and Colericus images respectively and
Flegmaticus and Melancolicus have similarities which recall Pencz.
The Four Temperaments
Hollstein 431-434; Bartsch 178
81 x 53 mm
The set of four.
The plates each signed with the monogram, titled, numbered
and captioned.
On laid paper, two with part of a watermark.
With margins.
£500
Three of the four ex collection: Raphael Sander (1844-1915),
most of whose collection ended up in the Kestner Museum in Hanover.
Ancient physiology considered that the human body contained
four kinds of fluids, or humours, which determined an individual’s
temperament according to their relative preponderance; and that
the organs that secreted them were subject to planetary influences;
thus man’s character was ‘in his stars’.
Each of the temperaments was associated allegorically with the animals
who were thought to exhibit the same nature, and also each was equated
to one of the four ‘elements’ – air, fire, water and earth.
Solis symbolises the Sanguine personality (where blood is the dominant
humour) as a female figure seated in the clouds, holding a lute,
accompanied by a peacock and horse.
His Choleric image (bile predominant) holding a torch and a heart
shot through with an arrow, sits amid flames, accompanied by a lion and eagle.
The Phlegmatic figure holds a rattle and spit and has an owl perched on her shoulder.
She sits on waves, or perhaps on the back of the ass.
Melancholy sits on a wall and has her feet on the earth.
She holds dividers and is accompanied by a deer and a swan.
Solis’ choice of animals is personal, rather than traditional.
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