Antonio Tempesta’s etching, “A Horse Galloping to the Left”, 1590

Antonio Tempesta (1555–1630)

“A Horse Galloping to the Left”, 1590, plate 12 from the series, “Horses of Different Lands” (Bartsch XVII.161.941–68).

The British Museum offers the following information regarding the series, “Horses of Different Lands”:

“Series of twenty-eight plates depicting horses from different lands; each plate showing one or two horses in a landscape; the series preceded by a frontispiece depicting Minerva in a chariot, driven by Prudence and Charity, and by a dedication sheet. 1590” (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1548281&partId=1&searchText=tempesta+Horses+of+different+lands&page=1).

Etching on fine laid paper trimmed around the platemark with restored upper right corner and backed with a support sheet.

Size: (sheet) 13.9 x 16.6 cm; (image borderline) 12.3 x 16.5 cm.

Inscribed on plate within the image borderline: (lower left) “Antonio tempest”

Numbered in brown ink below the image borderline: (lower right corner) “II”.

Numbered on plate below the image borderline: (blurred at lower centre) “I2”.

Monogramed on plate below the image borderline: (left) “A.T.F.” (acronym for Antonio Tempesta Fecit).

Lettered on plate below the image borderline in two lines of descriptive Latin verse in two columns: “Hic celer anti alios ualido quatit impede campos/ Ocior aut iaculo, aut uentos equante lagetta// Plerumq et uarijs maculis distinctus, anhelo/ Est comites reliquos afsuetus vincere cursu.”

TIB 36 (17).952 (161) (Sebastian Buffa [ed.] 1983, “The Illustrated Bartsch: Italian Masters of the Sixteenth Century”, vol. 36, New York, Abaris Books, p. 196, cat. no. 952 [161]).

The Harvard art Museums and the Rijksmuseum offer descriptions of this print:

https://hvrd.art/o/236579;

http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.184253.

Condition: very good impression printed in a silvery grey ink showing almost no sign of wear to the printing plate. The sheet is trimmed around the plate mark with restoration of the chipped upper right corner and laid upon a support sheet of archival (millennium quality) washi paper.

I am selling this early illustration of a galloping horse exemplifying the period style of Mannerism with the extreme animation of the horse’s rearing lunge forward and the spiralling flow of its mane, for the total cost of AU$238 (currently US$146.35/EUR135.06/GBP119.25 at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this superb etching executed in 1590, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.