Hebe is seen hurrying, full of youthful joy and with a garland of spring flowers adorning her hair. Hebe was the goddess of youth and was given the task of pouring nectar for the gods. In Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio’s print after Rosso Fiorentino, she is seen primarily in her role of representing eternal youth. Thorvaldsen, too, took Hebe as his motif several times (inv. nos. A37, A317 etc.) but consistently portrayed her with a jug and a bowl. So Thorvaldsen’s Hebe incorporates more clearly the role she had in pouring the draught of immortality and offering it to the other gods. The Greek Hebe corresponds to the Roman Juventus.
Caraglio was a northern Italian, presumably from Verona. However, he was working in Rome in 1525. There, a printer by the name of Baviera encouraged him to make a series of prints after the drawings by Rosso Fiorentino (1494-1540). Among them was the series (inv. nos. E1865 to E1884) to which this print belongs; these prints show altogether twenty figures of gods standing in niches.
