The Competition of Apollo and Marsyas and the Judgment of Midas

The Competition of Apollo and Marsyas and the Judgment of Midas

Giulio Sanuto

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Sanuto's engraving is based on a design by Bronzino for the inside of a harpsichord lid now in the Hermitage. Ovid had kept Apollo's musical competition with Pan, attended by King Midas (Metamorphoses 11.146-93), separate from that with the satyr Marsyas (6.382-400). Other sources, however, conflated them. The Florentine humanist Cristoforo Landino had named Midas and Minerva as judges of the contest with Marsyas, as they appear here at right. In the center, the defeated Marsyas is flayed, while in the background, Apollo punishes Midas for his bad judgment by attaching long ears to his head. Although the king hid them beneath a turban (not shown), his barber knew the truth and, sworn to secrecy, shouted it into a hole, as we see in the left foreground. The reeds that grew there whispered, "Midas has ass's ears." Sanuto has supplemented his model with the Muses from Raphael's Parnassus and a view of Venice.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Competition of Apollo and Marsyas and the Judgment of MidasThe Competition of Apollo and Marsyas and the Judgment of MidasThe Competition of Apollo and Marsyas and the Judgment of MidasThe Competition of Apollo and Marsyas and the Judgment of MidasThe Competition of Apollo 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.