The Massacre of the Innocents

Public Domain

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Artist Hendrick Goltzius (Dutch, 1558–1617)Dutch, 1558–1617

CultureDutch

Titles

The Massacre of the Innocents

Datec. 1585–1586, printed 18th century

MediumEngraving on laid paper

DimensionsPlate or block: 19 1/4 × 14 5/8 in. (48.9 × 37.2 cm)
Sheet: 19 11/16 × 15 3/16 in. (50 × 38.6 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the Alvin S. Romansky Prints and Drawings Accessions Endowment

Object number2026.6

Non exposé

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Department

Prints and Drawings

Object Type

PRINTS

ProvenanceThe artist; Dr. C. Axel Widstrand (Stockholm, 1866-1956; Lugt 2630a) [1]; F. Bensow (1883-1969; Lugt 982c) [2]; [Stockholm, Uppsala Auktionskammare, Decorative Sale-Day 2-The Frank Bensow Collection, March 19, 2025, lot 694]; [Kunsthandlung Helmut H. Rumbler, Frankfurt Am Main, 2025]; purchased by MFAH, 2025.

[1] C. Axel Widstrand began buying prints around 1890, but he did not become a large-scale collector until 1906. At its peak, the collection comprised approximately 40,000 works from all schools and periods. This entire collection has been dispersed, with the exception of the gifts he made between 1947 and 1950 to the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm (approximately 10,000 pieces, including 2,600 portraits of artists; see article L.1980 in the 1956 supplement). The Norrköping Museum (see L.1946b) acquired many pieces during the dispersal of the collection.

[2] Frank Bensow, born in Göthenborg, owned a collection of prints and some drawings from the 15th to the 18th centuries, 19th-century lithographs, and some modern sheets. Many come from the collection of Dr. A. Widstrand (see L.2630a). Bensow was a distinguished civil engineer and a major in the Swedish Army, serving in the Road and Waterway Construction Service Corps. He amassed his collection of more than 800 sheets of Old Master prints over several decades. Pencil notes made by Bensow on many sheets appear to indicate that his earliest acquisitions, made during the mid-to-late-1940s were the familiar cornerstone artists of many other traditional print collections, including Albrecht Dürer, Hendrick Goltzius, Claude Lorrain, and Jacques Callot. The Dutch prints in Bensow’s collection mainly concentrate on the late 16th and early 17th century Mannerists or the painter-etchers of Rembrandt’s circle and the subsequent generation, along with some outlying gems like the scarce and important engraving of The Last Judgment triptych based on Hieronymus Bosch from c.1550-1570. Bensow appears to have acquired several of the highlights by Hendrick Goltzius in his collection in 1947, including the complete set of six engravings that comprise The Life of the Virgin from 1593-1594, all richly-inked and early impressions, and The Massacre of the Innocents, Goltzius’s virtuoso and unfinished engraving from 1585-1586, the same impression of this scarce and desirable engraving that had previously been in the Widstrand collection. Acquisition notes reveal that his focus during the 1940s and 1950s was German and Dutch prints, while his collecting interests shifted to Italian and French works in the 1960s. Though it is unclear what sparked Bensow’s initial print collecting interest, with a technical background and civil engineer profession such as his, it seems probable that his wife, the Swedish painter and illustrator Sigrid Bensow (1882-1954), who he married in 1910, would have provided him with at least an early appreciation of art. Noteworthy in Bensow’s collection are a significant number of works acquired from the renowned Stockholm print collector Dr. C. Axel Widstrand (1866-1956), whose print collection, among the largest in Sweden and once totaling over 40,000 works, forms the core of the graphics collection at the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, and who must certainly have influenced Bensow. The attention to the superior quality of the early impressions he acquired and the referencing of their states and catalogue raisonné details, with pencil notations in Bensow’s hand on many sheets, stemmed from his close study of printmaking techniques and literature, an acute knowledge of comparable impressions, and to some degree a similar precision that was demanded by his technical profession. As Bensow noted in a brief introduction of an exhibition of graphic works from his collection shown at the Norrköpings Museum in 1961, “If you come across an old, decent ‘copper engraving,’ you often develop a certain appreciation for the image’s content–it gives a proper sense of time period, line work, and values. Upon closer inspection, you usually find the engraver’s name or signature and look it up in reference books like Nagler, Bartsch, and the like–both sources provide information about the artist and what they are known for. And then you discover a lot.”
Exhibition Historynone known for this impression.
Published References none known for this impression. Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Recto: Initialed in printed ink, in image, lower right: HG
Recto: Inscribed in printed ink, below image, center bottom edge: L. Renard Excudit. [cursive]
Recto: Inscribed in faded red pencil, bottom left corner: 2414
Verso: Inscribed in graphite, bottom edge: A / B.23 LeBl33, II Etat / Henrik Golzius 1558-1617 / 1947-E1- / 338 [crossed out] Et 3 (3) / B T 3 #23. LG
Verso: Inscribed in red pencil, bottom left corner: 2414.

Verso: Stamped in purple ink, bottom left corner: Wia [encircled] (L.2630a).
Verso: Stamped in purple ink, center bottom edge: FBW [in rectangle] (L.982c, Frank Benson)
Watermark: [similar to Churchill 420, Crowned Strasbourg shield with fleur-de-lys, and suspended letters ‘WR’ and "BEAVUAIS"

Catalogue raisonnéBartsch 23, state IV/IV; Hollstein VIII.17; Hirschmann 17.IV; Dutuit IV.410.23.IV; New Hollstein 15/IV

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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