Art, literature & history
Portrait of Bartolomaeus Spranger with an Allegory of the Death of His Wife, Christina Müller
1600
- Dating
- Exact year
- Held at
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Medium
- Engraving with etching in black on ivory laid paper
- Dimensions
- Image/sheet, trimmed within platemark: 29.3 × 41.6 cm (11 9/16 × 16 7/16 in.)
- Collection no.
- 1935.432
- Attribution
- By the artist
- Image rights
- CC0 1.0License details
Aegidius Sadeler II. Portrait of Bartolomaeus Spranger with an Allegory of the Death of His Wife, Christina Müller, 1600. Inventory 1935.432. Aegidius Sadeler II; Art Institute of Chicago. Collection credit: Bernard F. Rogers Collection. CC0 1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). https://www.artic.edu/artworks/22118. Full-frame proportional resize and JPEG compression. Existing creator authority Q1297898 explicitly identifies Chicago artist 22737 and NGA constituent 5422. Local biography years remain None / None; Chicago's numeric person fields remain 1570 / 1629, with object display 'Aegidius Sadeler\nFlemish, c. 1570-1629'. NGA's date wording 'Flemish, c. 1570 - 1629' is retained separately. These source assertions identify the same creator through explicit identifiers and names; no biography or creator link is changed.
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
About this artwork
Portrait of Bartolomaeus Spranger with an Allegory of the Death of His Wife, Christina Müller — Aegidius Sadeler II. 1600.
Medium: Engraving with etching in black on ivory laid paper. Dimensions: Image/sheet, trimmed within platemark: 29.3 × 41.6 cm (11 9/16 × 16 7/16 in.).
Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.
Aegidius Sadeler belonged to one of the great Netherlandish dynasties of reproductive printmakers. Sadeler went to Prague in about 1597 and worked at the court of Emperor Rudolph II. He was so admired for his portrait engraving that he was called the "Phoenix of Engraving." In this complex combination of portraiture and allegory, he paid homage to a contemporary Mannerist artist, Bartholomaeus Spranger. In deference to his fellow artist, Sadeler included a portrait of Spranger's recently deceased wife, as was the custom in 17th century Northern portraits.
Description: © Art Institute of Chicago, original record, CC BY 4.0. HTML formatting removed; wording retained. Other artwork metadata: CC0.
Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.
Location checked Sep 10, 2026. This does not indicate whether the work is on display.