Stefano della Bella’s etching, “Landscape with animals”, c.1646

Stefano della Bella (1610–64)

“Landscape with animals”, c.1646, from the series of 13 plates, “Views of Roman ruins and landscapes”, published by François Langlois, il Ciartres (1588–1647)

Etching on fine laid paper trimmed outside the image borderline and lined onto a sheet of heavy wove paper (Dutch Etch).

Size: (sheet diameter) 13.5 cm

De Vesme/Massar 1971 828.I (A.de Vesme, revised by Phyllis D.Massar 1971, “Stefano della Bella”, New York)

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:

“Landscape with animals; a horse and two shepherds seated and a cow and two goats grazing, with a waterfall behind to left; from a series of 13 round compositions. c.1646 Etching” (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1502398&partId=1&searchText=della+bella&page=1)

The curator of the BM offers the following information about the series of which this print is a part, “Views of Roman ruins and landscapes”:

“Series of 13 round prints, all depicting views of Rome and the surrounding area, based on drawings made on the spot, many of which were in two sketchbooks (now dismantled) at the Uffizi. In the second state the plates are numbered; the second state of the frontispiece also contains a dedication.” (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1502212&partId=1&searchText=X%2c5.136&page=1)

Condition: faultless rich and crisp impression. The sheet has been trimmed with only the “FL” visible from the publication details that would have been outside the trimmed area: “"F.L.D.Ciartres exc. cum Privil. Regis Christ." The print has been mounted onto heavy wove paper that is of conservation quality.

I am selling this very beautiful small round etching by one of the most famous of the late Renaissance/Mannerists for AU$215 in total (currently US$165.11/EUR155.94/GBP132.72 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this sensitively executed and skilfully composed etching, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

After reading the British Museum’s curator’s advice that this and the other prints of the same series (viz. “Views of Roman ruins and landscapes”) were “based on drawings made on the spot” (see earlier reference) I changed my original thoughts that this print was a romantic concoction steeped in an Arcadian past where lounging classically dressed shepherds gaze out into space and their animals enjoy each other’s company. Now that I am informed that there really is such a place—even if it is only bits of it—I want to be there.

For me, this print is the work of a true master. For example, I am amazed that within an area equivalent in size to a postage stamp that della Bella is able to render the form of the foreground horse with such unambiguous clarity that I could even model it in clay. I am especially impressed with his subtle use of contour-marks that “explain” the curves of the horse’s right flank and his insightful control of the thickness and thinness (i.e. linear phrasing) of the flank's silhouette outline.

Almost as remarkable as the sensitive treatment of the scene is the composition underpinning it. For instance, note how della Bella uses the meandering “S”-shaped curve of the path leading from the centre foreground to invite the eye on a visual journey to explore far into the distance. Even more interesting for me is that the round shape of the image is not perceived to be a flat, but rather it seems three-dimensional like a sphere. What I mean by this is that the artist has arranged the composition so that large forms are towards the centre and smaller ones are at the outer circumference giving the impression of optical distortion as if I were looking into a convex or a spherical mirror.

Jan Luyken’s “Hippopotamus with Crocodile“, 1690

Jan Luyken (1642-1712)

“Hippopotamus with Crocodile“, or (as titled in the plate), “Het Wonder-dier Behemoth int gemeen Hippopotamus of Nylpaard; met den Leviathan of Krokodi, volgens de niewfte ervarenis en Job kap. 40. afgebeeld.”(The wonder animal Behemoth, normally called Hippopotamus with the Leviathan or Crocodile depicted according to the latest experience and the Book of Job. 40. As shown), 1690, from Wilhelmus Goeree’s (1635–1711) famous Jewish biblical history: “Joodse Oudheden, ofte Voor-Bereidselen tot de Bybelsche Wysheid, en gebruik der heilige en kerkelijke historien: uit de Alder-Oudste Gedenkkenissen der Hebreen, Chaldeen, Babyloniers, Egiptenaars, Syriers, Grieken en Romeinen, ...', Amsterdam, 1690, p.1091.

Engraving with etching on laid paper with margins and centre-fold (flattened) as published, lined onto a conservator’s support sheet.

Size: (sheet) 36.5 x 40.7 cm; (plate) 29.5 x 39 cm; (image borderline) 27 x 37.8 cm

Inscribed with the plate/page number within the image borderline at top-left corner: “1091”

Lettered below the image borderline: “Het Wonder-dier Behemoth int gemeen Hippopotamus of Nylpaard; met den Leviathan of Krokodi, volgens de niewfte ervarenis en Job kap. 40. afgebeeld.”

Condition: faultless impression in near pristine condition. The sheet has been laid onto a conservator’s support sheet.

This print has been sold 

Sometimes when I list prints like this one, executed way back in 1690, I have to remind myself that Leonardo had only completed his “Mona Lisa” (aka la Gioconda) around 87 years before. If I then take into account that this portrayed scene of somewhere on the Nile—based on the pyramids shown in the background and the interestingly stretched hippopotamuses and a crocodile—was created a full two centuries before David Livingstone (1813–73) went on his search for the source of the Nile, I then find myself looking very closely at all the details. In short, this is an early print and the curious imagery featured in it has evolved from folklore and not always reliable descriptions from Renaissance era travellers.

Leaving aside my shameful joy in seeing errors in this late 17^th century artist’s vision of what critters from a far distant land might look like, my eyes keep looking at the moiré patterns (i.e. patterns like those produced when fly-screen mesh is folded over upon itself) enlivening the surface of the foreground hippo. Early printmakers often had this “problem” and, no doubt, it must have been a celebrated achievement for some as it meant that such an artist had the amazing technical ability to lay down a network of cross-hatched lines that were so fine, so precisely aligned in parallel rows and arranged at such a close angle that the eye can only see the moiré effect. In fact, the labelling of the effect with the word “moiré” seems to have been first identified in the English language with the word “mohair” in 1570 (derived from Arabic “mukhayyar”) used to describe the shimmery effect of the finest wool. (Thank you Wikipedia!) By the nineteenth century, however, illustrators had developed ways to avoid this late Renaissance/Mannerist “problem” (e.g. by increasing the angle between the cross-hatching).

Dominicus Custos’ engraving for the world’s first museum catalogue, “Armamentarium Heroicum” (1601)

Dominicus Custos (aka Dominicus Custodis; Dominicus de Costere) (c.1559–1615)

“Lansquenet Commander Sebastian Schertlin von Burtenbach in Armour”, c.1601, after the design by Giovanni Battista Fontana (1524–87), illustration plate from a German translation of Jacob Schrenckh von Notzing’s “Armamentarium Heroicum” (1601), published 1603/5.

Woodcut, etching and engraving on laid paper with small margins lined on a conservator’s support sheet.

Size: (sheet) 45.2 x 32.9 cm; (plate) 43.6 x 29.8 xm

Hollstein 60.

The curator of the British Museum offers the following information regarding the series of prints, “Armamentarium Heroicum”, of which this print is from:

“'Augustissimorum Imperatorum ... regum... verissimae imagines..' (also known as 'Armamentarium Heroicum') is the catalogue of the arms collection Archduke Ferdinand II kept at Ambras castle; it was first published in Innsbruck in 1601. It was illustrated with a frontispiece and 125 portraits of European princes in full armour, with decorative surroundings. The plates were engraved by Dominicus Custos after designs by Giovanni Battista Fontana. Each plate was accompanied by a short biographical text on the former owner of the armour, written by Jacob Schrenk von Notzing.

A German translation of the book (by J. E. Noyse von Campenhouten) was published in 1603 under the title 'Der aller Durchleuchtigisten und Grossmächtigen Kayser, Durchleuchtigisten unnd Großmächtigen Königen...'.

A third edition including 123 plates was issued in Innsbruck in 1605.”

(http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3485885&partId=1&searchText=1871,0812.405&page=1)

Condition: slightly silvery impression with a few spots of abrasion, and restoration. The sheet has be laid onto a conservator’s support sheet. There are traces hand-written script in brown ink with the name of the portrayed luminary (Sebastian Schertlin von Burtenbach) inscribed in the blank tablet at the lower centre. The sheet is in a restored clean condition.

I am selling important large print from the first museum catalogue every printed for AU$165 in total (currently US$126.63/EUR119.97/GBP101.54 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this historically significant print from the Renaissance era, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This full length portrait of Sebastian Schertlin von Burtenbach, is far more than a fine example why women should never design armour protection for codpieces. After all, no man would ever choose to have sharp pointed devices around his delicate bits. Indeed, it is part of a series of 125 engraved portraits, the "Armamentarium Heroicum", which holds the historically very significant position of being the very first museum catalogue in the world. Each of the plates, like this one, showcases the armour worn by the featured luminary and the set of prints is considered to be a museum catalogue because (unless I am mistaken) all the pieces of armour were in the collection of Archduke Ferdinand II (of Tyrol) and kept in the Ambras Palace near Innsbruck. Moreover, each plate is accompanied with biographical details about the owner of the armour written by the Archduke's secretary, Jacob Schrenck von Notzing (1539–1612).

Beyond being a part of the first illustrated document—a paper museum— of a collection, this print has another notable attribute that is also fascinating: according to the British Museum the prints of the “Armamentarium Heroicum” are not just engravings they are an amalgam of intaglio (etching and engraving) and relief (woodcut) printing.

For those that are interested in the subject of this portrait, Schertlin von Burtenbach (1496 –1577) served under Emperor Maximilian I as a mercenary field captain until his elevation in 1532 to the rank of infantry Commander-in-Chief of the whole of the Army of the Holy Roman Empire. Interestingly (and I am undoubtedly wrong about this), his main role was as a “Brandschatzmeister”—the chap responsible for pillaging.

1502 woodcut by the Late Master of the Grüninger Workshop

Late Master of the Grüninger Workshop (fl. 1502)

(Recto) “Winged Fama” (aka rumour), illustration to Book 4 of Virgil’s “Aeneid.”

Double sided woodcut leaf from “Vergilius Maro, Publius” (70-19 B.C.). Opera. Edited by Sebastian Brant, printed by Johannes Grüninger, Strassburg, 1502

According to information offered by Christie’s regarding the book from which this leaf has been extracted:

“FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF VIRGIL. One of the great German woodcut books of the Renaissance, and the masterpiece of the artist known as the Late Master of the Grüninger Workshop. Sebastian Brant was commissioned by the publisher to edit the work and based his commentary on that of Cristoforo Landino, adding several poems not in earlier editions of Virgil.” (http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/vergilius-maro-publius-70-19-bc-opera-edited-5662862-details.aspx)

Woodcut printed leaf (verso and recto) on laid paper.

Size: (leaf) 20.5 x 19.5 cm

Adams V-457; Brunet VI:1277; Muther 537; P. Kristeller, Die Strassburger Buchillustration (1888), pp.32-46, no. 99. Fact and Fantasy 12.

Condition: marvellous crisp, richly inked and well-printed impression(s) with faded traces of marginalia in brown ink by an old hand. The sheet has light staining and there is a tear on the right side (recto) that has been closed with a fine sliver of the original paper.

I am selling this incredibly rare leaf from one of the most important woodcut book of the early German Renaissance for AU$345 in total (currently US$264.78/EUR250.85/GBP212.31 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this incredibly powerful print of winged Fama/Rumour, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This leaf has been sold

Rather than addressing both sides of this incredibly rare leaf from one of the greatest woodcut books from the Renaissance (see my earlier reference from Christies), I have decided to focus solely on the arresting image of the winged nymph Fama (aka Romour).

From what I understand about Fama (with the help of Michael Paschalis’ [1997] “Virgil's Aeneid: Semantic Relations and Proper Names”) this nymph is a problem child. Like all bearers of rumours, after consulting with King Jarbas about Dido and Aeneas (to quote Paschalis) she “”fires’ Jarbas with bitterness and indignation which is vented in a prayer to Jupiter” (p. 155). Of course, Fama does not stop upon exciting (i.e. "firing up") the King and on hearing his prayer in which the King questions Jupiter whether the god “sees” the disgrace of Dido and Aeneas and whether he intends to hurl thunderbolts at them (amongst many more items that he was brooding about) she spreads what she has heard “throughout Italy” (ibid).

In case some of the details in this riveting image are missed, note Fama’s multiple ears, the eyes on her waist and the cloven hooves with wings attached. I also wish to draw attention to the large size of these hoof-wings. Usually artists reduce the size of foot-wings on celestial beings, such as the wing-footed god Mercury, for the sake of pictorial elegance. This is clearly not the case here as these hoof-wings look like they might actually function in keeping Fama airborne when needed. A few other details that catch my eye is the exploding fortress tower as a result of fire extending from her hand on the right side of the composition. What I find fascinating about this treatment of the explosion is that it is so similar to the treatment of the grass clumps that also look like explosions in the foreground.

Daubigny’s cliché-verre (glass print), “The Return of the Herd”

Charles-François Daubigny (1817–78)

“La Rentrée du Troupeau” (The Return of the Herd), 1862, from the series, “Quarante Cliché-Glaces”, published in the Le Garrec 1921 edition with Edmond Sagot’s ink-stamp verso.

Cliché-verre on tan wove paper, signed on plate (in reverse at the lower-left edge). Verso numbered 142/150 with the stamp of Sagot.

Size: (sheet) 36.2 x 28.6 cm; (image borderline) 34 x 26.9 cm

Edition number 142 (of 150)

Delteil 140 (Loys Delteil [1902], “Le Peintre-Graveur Illustré (XIXe et XXe siècles)”, 31 vols, Paris); Melot 140 (Michel Melot [1978], ”Graphic Art of the Pre-Impressionists”)

The British Museum offers the following description of this print: “Plate 27: shepherd and flock of sheep between trees in landscape; from a portfolio of forty mounted cliché-verre prints by five artists. 1862 Cliché-verre” (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1340954&partId=1&searchText=Daubigny+return+of+the+flock&page=1)

The curator of the BM offers the following information regarding the publication of this print:

“From a portfolio of forty individually mounted cliché-verre prints by Corot, Daubigny, Delacroix, Millet and Rousseau, printed from plates held in the collection of M. Cuvelier (Paris: Maurice Le Garrec, 1921); with title page, list of plates and 'avertissement', each mount and title page stamped with the series number in blue ink; edition 8/150 [Note that this print is numbered 142/150]. The verso of each print also bears a stamp, possibly that of the Edmond Sagot studio (the title page states that Le Garrec was the successor to Sagot). The department also holds a cliché-verre plate by Corot ... which was donated by M. Cuvelier after the printing of this series.” (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1341297&partId=1&searchText=1922,0410.213&page=1)

Condition: faultless impression in pristine condition. There are remnants of mounting hinges and Edmond Sagot's verification stamp of authenticity and the edition number “142/150” hand-inscribed in pencil above the stamp (verso).

I am selling this large and historically important print by one of the leading artists of the Barbizon School for AU$1250 in total (currently US$964.63/EUR910.12/GBP768.50 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this sublime print capturing the spirit of the Barbizon School, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

Art writers in the late nineteenth century didn’t quite know how to categorise Daubigny’s work. For instance, Charles Perrier (1859) went too far by proposing that Daubigny’s “ originality consists of fixing on canvas images that seem to have freed themselves from a mirror” (“Le Salon de 1859” in “Revue Contemporaine”, vol. 9, no. 2, May/June 1859, p. 320). The poet Charles Baudelaire, whose portrait is purported to feature in my previous post (with personal concerns about this claim as I discuss in that post), was arguably closer to the mark with his assessment that Daubigny’s landscapes ”immediately convey to the soul of the viewer the original feeling with which they are filled” (“Salon de 1959”, p. 105). Even closer to finding the “right” classification for Daubigny Zacharie Astruc who (according to Lynne Ambrosini [2015], in the excellent catalogue “Inspiring Impressionism: Daubigny, Monet, Van Gogh”) perceived that “Daubigny was strong in both ‘eyes’ and ‘heart” (p. 26)—a fine balance of objectivity and subjectivity.

If I may take a very different way of looking at this print (shamelessly reconfiguring borrowed ideas from Ambrosini [op. cit, p. 25]), five years before executing this print, Daubigny spent a good deal of his art-making time working in his famous studio boat, “Botin.” This may at first seem like a trivial detail but it really isn’t as his view from the river changed the way that his compositions were arranged. Essentially, from his boat he no longer looked at landscape with a foreground filled with an assortment of rocks, shrubs and grasses. Instead, he only saw ripples in water.

With regard to this print, I see a similar diminished interest in the immediate foreground and focus on the middle distance—a distance comparable to a long leap to shore from his little Botin. When this print is considered with an understanding of how Daubigny’s view of landscape had changed with his adventures upon his studio boat, I wish to propose that what is portrayed is more like a view through a screen of trees that one might see looking from a boat: a line-up of trees on the river bank with gaps in the visual barrier that they create allowing tiny glimpses into the distance. In short, although the portrayed scene is steeped in romanticism of the age in which it was created, it may also be an honest response to landscape evolved from the artist’s personal experiences.

Jacques Villon’s etching (from a cancelled plate) of a young man

Jacques Villon (1875– 1963)

“Portrait of Baudelaire” (cancelled plate), early 1900s (Note: the title of this print is based on information given to me at the time of purchase and may be inaccurate as the Baudelaire had passed away well before Villon was born and the portrait, if it is indeed of Baudelaire, is of a young man.)

Etching and drypoint with two cancellation marks (at lower centre) on wove paper with watermark (ntgolfier), signed in the plate

Size: (sheet) 31.8 x 23.9 cm: (plate) 23.5 x 17.5

Condition: excellent impression from the cancelled plate. The sheet is in pristine condition.

I am selling this fluidly drawn etching of the famous poet, arts writer and (according to Wikipedia) a “pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe”, Charles Pierre Baudelaire (1821–67), printed from the original but cancelled printing plate for a total cost of AU$132 (currently US$101.55/EUR96.23/GBP81.54 at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this delicate and very beautiful print taken from a cancelled etching plate, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy. 

I avoid purchasing prints where I can see clearly that the artist had wished that the printing plate was not to be used any longer—a wish that is evident (or “flagged”) by the two diagonal strokes at the lower centre of the image. Notwithstanding this reservation, I succumbed to acquiring this print partly because the impression is so very crisp and shows no sign of wear to the plate. More important, however, is the beauty of the image itself: a sensitively executed study underpinned with an early twentieth century leaning to fractured and layered surfaces.

What I love about this print are the freely drawn strokes that are laid as if Villon were “feeling” the form of the young man (purportedly Baudelaire but I have a lingering doubt about this because Baudelaire departed the planet eight years before Villon was born … and this is a very young Baudelaire) with the stylus without necessarily looking at closely at the subject’s superficial features. Of particular interest is the layering of the strokes with an upper layer of darker “sketchy” contour strokes overlaying a tonal mass of tightly aligned, almost mechanically drawn, diagonal strokes. Essentially, this portrait is created from two different mindsets: an analytical way of looking and thinking where mass is perceived and ordered, and a more intuitive way of responding where a unimpeded flow of unpremeditated strokes explore and “shape” the subject.

Lucas Vorsterman (I)’s engraving after Ruben’s “The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence”

Lucas Vorsterman (I) (aka Lucas Aemilius Vorsterman) (1595–1675)

“The Martyrdom of St Lawrence”, 1621, after the painting by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, published by Lucas Vorsterman I. Note: the curator of the BM points out that there is also a preparatory drawing by Van Dyck (?) in The Metropolitan Museum, New York.

Engraving on wove paper (19^th century impression) with margins

Size: (sheet) 44.4 x 31.4 cm; (plate) 39.3 x 28.6 cm; (image borderline) 37.2 x 27.3 cm

Lettered within the image borderline at bottom left, "Lucas Vorsterman sculp. et excud. Ao. 1621", in lower margin four lines Latin dedication by Rubens to Laurens Beyerlinck, left the privilege CPRCPB&OB, right "P. P. Rubens pinxit"

Schneevoogt 1873 105.100 (C G Voorhelm Schneevoogt 1873, “Catalogue des estampes gravées d'après P.P.Rubens”, Haarlem); Hollstein 88.II (under Vorsterman) (F W H Hollstein 1949, “Dutch and Flemish etchings, engravings and woodcuts c.1450-1700”, Amsterdam); see also the impression held by the Rijksmuseum: http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.346335  

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:

“The Martyrdom of St Laurence; St Laurence being roasted on a gridiron, pushed by two torturers on either side; a third man providing wood into the fire in foreground; two helmeted officers at left, another one on horseback at right; one priest, one lictor urging the martyr to abjure his faith at centre, other spectators in the distance; in left background a statue of Jupiter; above a cherubs holding out a martyr's crown and palm; after Peter Paul Rubens. 1621 Engraving” (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1640947&partId=1&searchText=vorsterman+rubens+&page=1)

Condition: exceptional 19^th century impression in superb—near pristine—condition (i.e. there are no tears, holes, folds, stains, abrasions or foxing). There are pencil notations on the lower edge of the sheet (recto).

I am selling this large, spectacular and important engraving by one of the finest reproductive engravers of the 17^th century for a total cost of AU$187 (currently US$143.55/EUR136.58/GBP115.29 at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing major print from the Renaissance era, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy. 

This print has been sold

Vorsterman is one of the greatest printmakers of the 17^th century in terms of the art of translating colour, texture and tone of paintings into prints. He was certainly the finest reproductive engraver/etcher of Rubens and Van Dyck’s designs. Sadly, like most intense and obsessively committed artists, he was prone to having/creating explosive relationships with those he worked with. Accordingly, his working relationship with Rubens ended abruptly in 1622—so abruptly that there was a rumour that Vorsterman may have almost stabbed Rubens to death! From what I understand, based on what Rubens wrote to Peter van Veen in April 1622, Vorsterman had delusions of grandeur.  Vorsterman’s falling out with the artistic luminaries of the time, however, simply redirected his energies into the discipline of being a print publisher and in the same year of his calamitous disagreement with Rubens he was awarded a six-year publisher’s privilege from Archduchess Isabella of Austria. Interestingly, this print was both engraved and published by Vorsterman, but under the privilege (i.e. copyright) of the Spanish Crown rather than Austria.

Regarding the privilege inscribed on this plate, it was obtained by Rubens rather than Vorsterman in 1619. What this granted Rubens was permission to “have copies made and engraved by an engraver of his choice. Furthermore, it was forbidden for the next twelve years for anyone else to copy ‘the aforesaid paintings so depicted and engraved on plates.’” (Carl Depauw & Ger Luijten 1999, “Anthony van Dyck as printmaker”, Antwerpen Open, p. 387)

Lucchese’s engraving (1539) after Raimondi’s “The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence” (c.1520)

Michele Lucchese (aka Michele Greco; Michele Grech; Michele Crecchi;) (fl. 1534–64)

“The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence”, 1539, after Marcantonio Raimondi (1470/82–1527/34) after a drawing by Baccio Bandinelli (1493–1560), published by Giovanni Giacomo De Rossi (1627–1691)

Engraving on laid paper trimmed to the image borderline

Size: (sheet) 27.3 x 35 cm

Inscribed on a tablet: “Baccius Brandin invent”

Lettered at the lower edge: (left) “M.L cu privilegio”; (centre) Ant. Lafrerj. Rom; (right) the lettering in this area is difficult to decipher and the text shown here may be inaccurate, “Gio Bat.de Rossi ….Petri de Nobilibus Forimnis”

TIB 26 (14) 104C (89) (Walter Koschatzky, Mark Carter Leach, Peter Morse, Leonard Joseph Slatkes, Walter L. Strauss 1978, “The illustrated Bartsch”, Vol. 26, p. 136, cat. no. 104C); see also the discussion about the engraver in  M. Bury’s (2001) “The Print in Italy 1550-1625”, British Museum, London, p. 228.

Condition: good impression from a slightly worn plate. The sheet is in excellent condition (i.e. there are no significant tears, holes, folds, stains, abrasions or foxing). There are pencil notations and an ink collector’s stamp verso.

I am selling this important engraving executed in 1539 by Michele Lucchese (who signs his plates M.L.) after Marcantonio Raimondi’s earlier engraving (c.1520) after the drawing by Baccio Bandinelli for a total cost of AU$433 (currently US$331.58/EUR314.70/GBP267.12 at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this print that embodies the spirit of the Renaissance era, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy. 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art offers the following interesting account of the shenanigans behind the publication of Marcontonio Raimondi print—one of his last and arguably one of his most famous prints—that Lucchese copied after the original drawing by Baccio Bandinelli (1493–1560):

“Like many of Bandinelli's projects, his commission to paint two large frescoes for the church of San Lorenzo in Florence came to nothing. However, his patron was so impressed by his drawing for the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence that he granted him the Knighthood of Saint Peter. In order to spread the fame of this admired design, Bandinelli hired Marcantonio to engrave it. Bandinelli is said to have complained to the pope of Marcantonio's failings. However, when Clement VII compared the drawing and the print, he concluded that the engraver had corrected many of Bandinelli's errors.” (http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/345726)

I suspect that having the pope support Raimondi’s version must have been wonderful for Raimondi but I empathise with the emotional pain that Bandinelli must have felt being so harshly dismissed. From what I understand about the sorry state of Bandinelli’s pride, this was not the only time that Bandinelli was scorned. He seemed to attract spiteful comments from most of his fellow artists—and even arts writers well after he died.

What makes this image by Bandinelli that Raimondi and Lucchese translated into engravings so interesting for me is its clear references to Michelangelo. For instance St Lawrence is posed like Adam reaching up to God in the Sistine Chapel and the virtual sea of naked men in the foreground—with no need for them to be fully naked that I can see (apart from St Lawrence)—smacks of Michelangelo’s joy in all things manly.

Beyond the referencing to Michelangelo, this print epitomises the age in which it was conceived. What I mean by this is that the symmetry of the composition and the formality of the arrangement of the figures harks back to classical times. Moreover, one does not have to try too hard to see the prefect of Rome (under the authority of Emperor Valerian) seated in the centre of the composition as a visual equivalent of early Roman depictions of Jupiter.