The Caeliusstein

The drawing is probably by Hermann Ewich (1601-1673), a priest and scholar interested in antiquarian studies, who is believed to have inspected the grave stele in Kleve in 1634. There he also studied Johannes Turck’s handwritten Latin chronicle, which included the oldest known depiction of the grave stele by an anonymous artist, released shortly before 1630. What is presumed to be Ewich’s drawing clearly shows the humanist scholar’s study of the object and all available sources. On the one hand, it is clearly based on the older pen drawing, taking up its partially incorrect reading of and additions to the inscription and, for example, also adopting the rotation of the portrait busts with pedestals on either side. On the other hand, it makes changes that were only possible through an autopsy of the grave stele itself. The depiction reproduces the typeface and filling motifs in great detail, which had been neglected in Turck’s drawing. Moreover, the tendrils of the gable decoration are also closer to the original than the sketchy execution of the earlier drawing. The pen drawing was later handed down, pasted into a version of the Codex Pighianus, a compilation of ancient Lower Rhine monuments by Stephanus Pighius (1520-1604) inherited by Ewich in 1646. The authorship of the drawing is therefore not entirely certain, but the drawing itself and its transmission testify to an intensive engagement with Roman antiquities, evaluating all available sources.