2-722-753 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Allegory of Death and Fame, 1518. The opposite of the beautiful temptress, the hag embodied the nature of witchcraft. Old and hideous, the hag was associated with Invidia, the personification of Envy, because of her jealousy of youth and fertility. Agostino Veneziano provided designs for several widely disseminated prints of demonic imagery and witchcraft. In the Allegory of Death and Fame , Invidia is the skeletal creature peering over the right shoulder of winged Death. Her representation heavily influenced 17th-century artists representations of hags. The stereotypical elderly witch with exposed, sagging breasts and sunken features is derived from the sinking, skeletal figures of Veneziano's frieze-like compositions.