Apollo and Marsyas and the Judgment of Midas

Apollo and Marsyas and the Judgment of Midas

Melchior Meier

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

According to Ovid, Apollo engaged in two musical competitions. When Marsyas boasted that his flute playing could rival the music of Apollo, the god proved his superiority and then punished Marsyas by flaying him alive. The Arcadian god Pan emerged unscathed from his own competition with Apollo, although King Midas, present at the contest, found his ears transformed into long, shaggy gray ones for his foolishness in preferring Pan's rustic notes to Apollo's ethereal harmonies. Here, Meier has cleverly combined the two stories: as Midas points to the woodland god, Apollo not only grants the king ass's ears but mocks him with the skin of Marsyas, whose flayed body is displayed at left.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Apollo and Marsyas and the Judgment of MidasApollo and Marsyas and the Judgment of MidasApollo and Marsyas and the Judgment of MidasApollo and Marsyas and the Judgment of MidasApollo and Marsyas and the Judgment of Midas

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.