Currently not on view
Pyramid of Five Men,
ca. 1543
Fontainebleau School, French, 1530s–ca. 1710
attributed to Juste de Juste, French, 1505–1559
attributed to Juste de Juste, French, 1505–1559
x1978-8
Unsettling and precarious, this bizarre human pyramid is one of five similar etchings that have been associated with De Juste, whose scrambled monogram appears in the lower left corner. Of Florentine origin, De Juste belonged to the large team of artists employed on the elaborate stucco decoration for the gallery of the French King François I’s chateau at Fontainebleau. In privileging tortured contortions over balletic ease, De Juste pushed the Renaissance preoccupation with the idealized male nude to an extreme. Misinterpreted in the past as human alphabets or flayed bodies, these anguished and sexually charged acrobats elude definition.
Information
Title
Pyramid of Five Men
Dates
ca. 1543
Maker
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
plate (sheet trimmed to plate): 27.7 × 20.6 cm (10 7/8 × 8 1/8 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase
Object Number
x1978-8
Place Made
Europe, France, Fontainebleau
Inscription
Artist's monogram in plate, lower right corner: [a scrambled IVSTE in reverse]
Marks/Labels/Seals
Watermark: crowned jug (Briquet 12649)
Reference Numbers
Zerner 5
Materials
Techniques
- Jean Laran, Inventaire du Fonds Français après 1800 (Paris: M. Le Garrec, 1930–)., no. 152
-
Henri Zerner, The School of Fontainebleau: Etchings and Engravings (London: Thames & Hudson, 1969).
, no. 5, po, 33–34 - Master Prints 2 (New York: Kennedy Galleries, 1976)., cover, no. 35, p. 28 (illus.)
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1978," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 38, no. 1 (1979): p. 14-38., p. 28 (illus.)
