Mythology

Antique Prints of Mythological Subjects

This category brings together original antique prints depicting subjects from classical Greek and Roman mythology as part of the Subjects A-Z index, providing a subject-based entry point to the mythological imagery available throughout the Antique Print & Map Room collection. Mythology was among the most extensively depicted subject categories in European print-making across the 16th to 19th centuries, drawing on the inexhaustible narrative and allegorical resources of the ancient world to produce images of lasting appeal and considerable variety.

The stories of the Olympian gods — Jupiter and his transformations, Venus and the myths of love and beauty, Diana and the hunt, Apollo and the Muses, Neptune and the sea — provided subjects for prints ranging from the heroic and dramatic to the lyrical and decorative. Scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses were engraved from the paintings of Raphael, Titian, Rubens, Poussin and their successors, creating a body of print imagery that communicated the canon of classical narrative to European audiences who encountered mythological subjects through prints before they had access to the paintings themselves.

Heroic mythology — the labours of Hercules, the voyages of Ulysses and Aeneas, the tragic fate of Achilles and the fall of Troy — generated prints of dramatic and narrative intensity that complemented the more lyrical subjects of Olympian myth. These heroic subjects were engraved for illustrated editions of Homer and Virgil as well as for the independent print market, connecting the tradition of mythological print-making to the broader history of European literary illustration.

Allegorical subjects drawn from the mythological tradition — the personifications of the virtues, the seasons, the elements and the arts — appear alongside narrative mythological subjects, extending the reach of classical mythology into the decorative and emblematic traditions of European print culture.

Antique mythology prints available through this subject index span the full chronological and stylistic range of the collection, from 16th-century engravings to 19th-century steel-engraved illustrations, offering collectors a comprehensive subject-based view of one of the most enduring categories of European print imagery.