King Arsaces Dedicating a Panther to Dionysus

In the late 16th century, Antwerp’s publishing houses pumped out so many prints that the city was the dominant force in European visual culture. Joannes Stradanus was a principal supplier of designs to this industry. Demand for his hunting scenes was great, leading him to produce over a hundred of them. King Arsaces Dedicating a Panther to Dionysus belongs to the group of hunting designs Stradanus prepared for a 1596 publication. The fine detail and rich combination of ink lines, wash tones, and white heightening are typical of his work. The lines in the composition are incised, which facilitated the transfer of the image to another surface, in this case a copper plate, which was in turn engraved by Jan Collaert II.