Lucas van Leyden
Dutch, 1489/94-1533

The Poet Virgil Suspended in a Basket,
1525
Engraving, first of three states

Museum Purchase
1993.11

In this pristine engraving, Lucas partially illustrates a Medieval legend about the ancient Roman poet, Virgil, suspended in a basket in a scene Lucas has driven far into the perspectival space. According to the legend, the poet had fallen in love with the daughter of the Emperor of Rome and agreed to be nocturnally hoisted up to her room in a basket. Instead of the fulfillment of his desires, however, he was ruthlessly humiliated by being left to hang at mid-point until the next day when his amorous pursuit was brought to light in front of the people of Rome. Lucas focuses on this moment by filling the foreground with male and female onlookers variously gesturing in response to the poet's dilemma.

The incident was used as a still relevant example of the seductive power of Women, which unfairly masters the wisest and strongest of men, such as Virgil and Samson. Christine de Pizan, however, emphasizes the integrity to which women are inclined and therefore the paranoid hypocrisy of such an interpretaion of the Power of Women. In fact, it is the wise males who are at fault: "I am baffled when eminent scholars...exhibit so little prudence in their morals and conduct in the world." How can weak women master such strong men? Who is strong and who is weak? What, in fact, is Power?


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