1. Master MZ
(1478-1555)
Aristotle and Phyllis

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Master MZ: Aristotle and Phyllis

Aristotle and Phyllis

Engraving, ca. 1500, 179 x 130 mm., Bartsch 18, Lehrs 22. Provenance: Bernhard Keller, 1789-1870 (Lugt 384). A fine, early impression, sharp, clear and black in the deep shadows, on laid paper with an apparently unrecorded watermark of a small flower with two leaves. The print is rare; Lehrs estimates forty impressions extant of which only twenty are early. The sheet has been given an added narrow margin and 5 mm. at the top and 2 mm. at the top left have been restored, with the very top curve of the whip drawn in pen and ink; a tear at the left has been neatly repaired. In the medieval legend, Aristotle was the philosopher friend and tutor of Alexander the Great, and Phyllis, Alexander's favorite courtesan. Aristotle, in attempting to end the relationship, warned Alexander that women had often been the undoing of strong men. Phyllis, to gain revenge, aroused the passion of the philosopher and demanded, as proof of his love, that she be allowed to ride on his back as on a horse. The incident was witnessed by Alexander who learned thereby to distrust women, against whom even old philosophers were powerless. The story became an allegory of woman's domination of man. Phyllis has also been called Campaspe.