Enea Vico’s engraving, “Giovanni Battista Gelli”, c.1548

Enea Vico (1523–1567)

“Giovanni Battista Gelli” (aka “Portrait of Poet and Philosopher Giovan Battista Gelli” [Rijksmuseum title]), c.1548, after a medal design by Antonio Francesco Doni (1513-1574), from the aborted series of ten portraits engraved by Vico between 1547 and 1550, “Le Medaglie del Doni Fiorentino” (The Medals of the Doni Fiorentino), published in Venice, c.1550.

Engraving on laid paper trimmed unevenly around the image borderline.

Size: (sheet) 15.3 x 11.3 cm.

Inscribed on plate: (below the image borderline at left) “Enea da Parma invent. fac.”; (around the centre medallion) “M.GIO.BATISTA GELLI ACADEMICO FIOREN”; (in the lower round cartouche) “Medaglia/ del Doni/ n. 61.”

TIB 30.246 (355) (John Spike [ed.] 1985, “The Illustrated Bartsch: Italian Masters of the Sixteenth Century: Enea Vico”, vol. 30, New York, Abaris Books, p. 162, cat. no. 246 [335]); Bartsch XV.335.

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:

“Bust portrait of Giovanni Battista Gelli facing right set within an elaborate cartouche”

(https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1862-0208-118).

See also the description of this print (no image) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/370651?searchField=All&sortBy=Relevance&ft=Enea+Vico&offset=80&rpp=80&pos=89;

and at the Rijksmuseum:

http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.188421.

Condition: excellent impression, near faultless in the portrait cartouche, but with slightly abraded areas towards the outer edges. The sheet is appropriately age-toned/darken for a Renaissance period print with restoration patches verso reinforcing holes and thin areas in the sheet.

I am selling this lifetime impression (based on the crisp line quality) of a Renaissance period engraving, featuring a portrait of Giovanni Battista Gelli (1498–1563)—a leading Florentine poet, shoemaker, philosopher, consul and a founding member of the Accademia Fiorentina in which he wrote a commentary on the language of Adam in the XXVI canto of Dante 's “Paradise”—following the likeness of Gelli shown on medal designed by Antonio Francesco Doni, for the total cost of AU$437 (currently US$285.78/EUR262.97/GBP229.50 at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world (but not, of course, any import duties/taxes imposed by some countries).

If you are interested in purchasing this strong engraving executed and possibly pulled from the press in Michelangelo’s lifetime, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy. (My apologies for all faults in my understanding of what is illustrated in this scene.)

This print has been sold