Aria of Isabella and the last word of Christ. Intermedial intertextuality in Johann Kupezky’s son portraits

Abstract

The article is in analysis of the visual, musical and textual aspects of the relevant scientific issue – the concept of intermedial intertextuality – on the example of two engravings created in mezzotint technique based on the selfportrait of the outstanding Baroque portraitist of Bohemian origin Johannes Kupetsky with his son Christoph, and on Christoph’s posthumous portrait. The first one was created by the Nuremberg engraver Bernhard Vogel, the second – by him or by his apprentice Valentin Daniel Preissler. In addition to the images, those prints contain poetic inscriptions, quotations and musical texts. In a lifetime portrait the musical text was identified as the incipit of an aria of the Baroque opera by Reinhard Kaiser. Thanks to it, the quote from Statius’s “Thebaid” in the engraving was associated with the experience of marital adultery. In the posthumous portrait of Christoph, accepting from Manus Dei a scroll with the emblem of “Τετέλεσται”, the motto bears the evangelical connotations – the execution of the sentence and the completion of the earthly path. The image of the siren on the emblem corresponds to the image of the personification of Eternity in the Iconology by Cesare Ripa. However, the siren in the Nuremberg mezzotint holds not a ball but a compass, outlining an incomplete circle – a motif associated with the personification of Perfection. The emblem on the mezzotint illustrates a syncretic image of Perfection found in Eternity.