The Ricky Jay Collection

The Ricky Jay Collection

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 589. (Tightrope Walker) | "The Rumor Has Wings".

(Tightrope Walker) | "The Rumor Has Wings"

Auction Closed

October 28, 08:54 PM GMT

Estimate

2,000 - 3,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

(Tightrope Walker)

Fama Volta [translation: "The Rumor Has Wings"]. Np: July 1732


Engraving (440 x 290 mm). Woodcut image of a tightrope walker, text at bottom; old folds, some staining, a few closed tears, a few small holes. Mounted, framed and glazed with Plexiglas; not examined out of frame.


An allegory of fame


Fama Volat is the Latin phrase for "rumor flies." In Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid, Fama (or the personification of a popular rumor), is described as a swift, birdlike monster, whose eyes, lips, tongues, and ears are as numerous as her feathers. The bird travels on the ground, but with her head in the clouds. A popular figure within Greco-Roman mythology, in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Fama dwells in a mountaintop palace of brass, which reverberates like a bell. It is easy to see how such a personification could lend itself to the image of the tightrope walker.


In a note, Jay speculates that the present woodcut is of a famous Dutch woman featured in Marcellus Laroon’s vibrant series of engravings titled The Cryes of the City of London drawne after the Life.

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