ELSÄSSER, Sigmund
(d. ca. 1587)

Wedding Festival Book of Archduke Ferdinand II: Neptune

1582
Copperplate etching with watercolour on paper, 430 x 535 mm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Sigmund Elsässer was a court painter of Archduke Ferdinand II. He recorded pageants, weddings, and other court festivities.

The so-called Wedding Festival Book of Archduke Ferdinand II owes its origins to the second marriage ceremony of the Tyrolian nobleman in May 1582 at Innsbruck; the bride was the Mantuan Princess Anna Caterina Gonzaga. The codex contains 106 colour prints of the events of a tournament, which was arranged for the festivities.

Folio 51r of the codex shows Neptune, the bearded, trident-carrying sea god, clad in plate armour over clothing made from scales and foliage, gliding over the wave-tops in his clamshell wagon.