Bowdoin College Museum of Art | - Sea Monster with a Water Fowl in its Mouth

Preview image of work. engraving on paper, Sea Monster with a Water Fowl in its Mouth 9970

1987.53

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Sea Monster with a Water Fowl in its Mouth

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Artist

Giovanni Andrea Maglioli (Italy, Rome, active 1580-1610)

Title

Sea Monster with a Water Fowl in its Mouth

Creation Date

1580-1610

Century

16th-17th century

Dimensions

7 1/16 in. x 10 3/8 in. (17.9 cm. x 26.4 cm.)

Object Type

Creation Place

Europe, Italy

Medium and Support

engraving on paper

Credit Line

Museum Purchase

Copyright

Public Domain

Accession Number

1987.53

Maglioli’s monsters impress rather than horrify the viewer. In scores of seagoing composite beasts, the artist combined upper bodies of humans, goats, bulls, lions, and even an elephant with the tails of dolphins. In this print, Maglioli’s dog-headed hippocamp (fish-tailed horse) grasps a luckless duck in its jaws. Fins and foliage sprout from the monster’s equine forequarters and serpentine tail. The decorative invention of this startling beast exemplifies the artistic freedom of fantasy and imagination discussed by the ancient Roman poet Horace in his Ars Poetica (ca. 18 B.C.): “Imagine a painter who wanted to combine a horse’s neck with a human head, and then clothe a miscellaneous collection of limbs with various kinds of feathers, so that what started out at the top as a beautiful woman ended in a hideously ugly fish… Painters and poets have always enjoyed equal right to venture on what they will.”