Georg Pencz, designer

Georg Pencz and Hans Sebald Beham worked in Reformation Nuremberg during and after Dürer’s life. Called the “Little Masters” for the predominately small format of their prints, these engravers were direct technical successors of Dürer. However, Italian engravings would have been readily available for study by the 1540s and thus their works can be placed in the context of Marcantonio Raimondi’s influence as well. The copious dot-work found on the figures and the passages of parallel lines that define the form of legs and arms may in fact owe more to Italian models than to Dürer.

Pencz’s image conflates two stories, a confusion that may be attributed to the engraver, or to the misleading inscription at the upper right. The inscription indicates that the scene represents the centaur Chiron’s instruction of the Greek hero Achilles. Though Achilles is present in the right background, it is Hercules, another of Chiron’s pupils, who is more prominent, having just killed his first lion. The central female figure is likely Achilles’ mother, Thetis. To confuse things further, the hoofed figure of Chiron is shown not as a centaur (half man/half horse) as legend requires, but a satyr (half man/half goat).