The Fifth Day (Dies V): The Creation of the Kingdom of Animals, from "The Creation of the World"

The Fifth Day (Dies V): The Creation of the Kingdom of Animals, from "The Creation of the World"

Jan Muller

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1589 Jan Muller, son of the Amsterdam book printer, engraver, and publisher, was a member of or working in Hendrick Goltzius’s workshop in Haarlem. During that time, he engraved a series of prints depicting the creation of the world after designs by Goltzius, the premier draftsman and printmaker in the northern Netherlands. Although some preliminary sketches for the series still exist, the finished designs are now lost. The series itself is extraordinary. Rather than following the centuries old traditional representations of the seven days of creation, based on the Book of Genesis, Goltzius looked instead to classical mythology for his imagery. It is often suggested that he was inspired by Ovid, the first century Latin poet, who describes the creation at the beginning of The Metamorphoses, his long poem about the gods and humankind. In the foreground is a sea goddess, lounging in the waves, buoyed up by various sea creatures. The print is crowded with animals, filling nearly the whole circular space. As in the Bible, they are designated as creatures of the air, earth and water, though here mingling closely together.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Fifth Day (Dies V): The Creation of the Kingdom of Animals, from "The Creation of the World"The Fifth Day (Dies V): The Creation of the Kingdom of Animals, from "The Creation of the World"The Fifth Day (Dies V): The Creation of the Kingdom of Animals, from "The Creation of the World"The Fifth Day (Dies V): The Creation of the Kingdom of Animals, from "The Creation of the World"The Fifth Day (Dies V): The Creation of the Kingdom of Animals, from "The Creation of the World"

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.