A Man Tormented by Jealousy Takes Revenge on Cupid

Bénigne Gagneraux

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Trained in Dijon, Gagneraux won the prix-de-Rome and left in 1779 for Italy, where he would spend the remainder of his career. His contemporaries in Rome included Mengs, Sergel, Fuseli, Canova, and David. While line engravings would be popularized by Flaxman and others, Gagneraux was among the first to adopt this manner of printmaking. In this etching, Gagneraux depicts a large, powerful man in antique dress. He is tormented by jealousy, represented by a frightening old woman with snakes instead of hair who rides on his back by gripping fistfuls of his hair. He in turn prepares to strike Cupid, who kneels on the ground and raises an arm in self-defense. Gagneroux accentuates the planar quality of the composition by adding a dark background in aquatint. The print is a variant of a smaller format line engraving he made as part of a publication of 18 outline prints in 1792. He has carried over the unusual subject, but altered many details, adding classical sandals to the man and giving a Medusa-like head of snakes to the figure of Jealousy.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art