Italian Engravings Research Articles

Heritage of traditions in early Italian chisel engraving (allegorical series): Renaissance and the Middle

Heritage of traditions in early Italian chisel engraving (allegorical series): Renaissance and the Middle

Meditaciones en la villa de Pratolino. Los aguafuertes de Stefano Della Bella en la colección de la Antigua Academia de San Carlos

<p>El artículo se ocupa de la serie de aguafuertes <em>Vedute della Villa di Pratolino a Firenze</em>, realizada por el grabador italiano Stefano Della Bella en 1653 y que actualmente forma parte de la colección de la Academia de San Carlos de la Facultad de Artes y Diseño de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar los pormenores de la adquisición de dichas obras salvaguardadas en los acervos, así como abordar la permanencia mediante la representación en los grabados, de la disposición efímera y frágil de un momento específico en la historia de los jardines.</p>

Дверной портал крымских ханов эпохи итальянского Возрождения: визуальная культура в Крыму в раннее Новое время

The introduced work is a translation from English of the Turkish researcher Nicole Kançal-Ferrari`s article, which was published in Muqarnas magazine in 2017. The article is under the name: “An Italian Renaissance Gate for the Khan: Visual Culture in Early Modern Crimea”. The author gives a new interpretation of this famous Gate in the Khan`s Palace in Bakhchisarai. She considers that it was made in the Renaissance period and the author of the Gate was very famous Italian sculptor and engraver Alevisio the New (1494?–1551).

CATALOGUES OF ENGRAVINGS – ITALIAN ONES FROM THE NATIONAL MUSEUM IN WROCŁAW AND FRENCH ONES FROM THE NATIONAL MUSEUM IN SZCZECIN

At the turn of 2017 and 2018, with the date 2017 printed in the colophon, two catalogues of engravings’ collections were published: old Italian prints from the collection of the National Museum in Wrocław, and French prints from the National Museum in Szczecin. The collection of Wrocław contains groups of artworks by the best Italian engravers from the Renaissance to the 18th century, and a small representation of the 19th century. An introduction to the catalogue gives the history, the scope and the contents of the collection as well as the brief history of the engraving art on the Apennine Peninsula. The catalogue itself is glossed, giving references to the latest research, preceded by biographical notes of encyclopaedic character. This well illustrated and thoroughly edited catalogue, organised in a user-friendly alphabetical order, is a compendium useful not only for art historians. The catalogue published by the National Museum in Szczecin has the same title as the exhibition of French engravings from its collection. It is a combination of both the exhibition and the collection catalogue. Hence its specific layout corresponding rather with the narration of an exhibition than a catalogue’s criteria. Both the encyclopaedic profiles of artists and the following glosses are accompanied by selected bibliography; its full version together with extensive academic references can be found at the end of the volume. The collection of over 600 prints has been divided not in alphabetical or chronological order but in accordance with an academic hierarchy of subjects. Engravings for art reproduction purposes prevail in Szczecin collection although original works of famous artists are also included. The publication of both catalogues allows us to learn more about the engravings in Polish public collections, i.e. the ones of national museum in Szczecin and Wrocław. It also gives the history of Polish collections after 1945, affected by the previous losses of the World War II. Undoubtedly, the sign of the times and the presence of Poland in the united Europe is the publication of the Italian engravings’ collection from Wrocław, which was kept before in the Academy of Arts in Berlin. Great care has been taken to prepare both catalogues in terms of their typography, although the illustrations in the French engravings’ catalogue would be of more benefit if were somewhat larger.

March Through a Swamp in Pursuit of Slaves: John Gabriel Stedman.

Captain JohnGabriel Stedman (1744-1797)was a professional soldier in the service of the Dutch colony of Surinamewhofoughttosuppressan18th-centuryslaverebellion and subsequently published an account of his experiences.MarchThroughaSwampinPursuitofSlaves, by the ItalianengraverFrancescoBartolozzi (1725-1730to1815), isbased on awatercolormadeby Stedmanwhile on a campaign against the Surinamese rebels. Stedmanwas born in 1744 in the city of Dendermonde in the Austrian Netherlands. At the age of 16 he was commissioned as a junior officer in the Dutch Republic's Scots Brigade and subsequently advanced to the rank of lieutenant. In 1772 he sailed with 800 troops to Suriname, on the northern coast of South America, to strengthen local forces againstorganizedbandsofescapedslavescalledMaroons,who were raiding the colony’s sugar plantations to steal weapons, tools, and ammunition and recruit more slaves to their rebellion. To stop the raids, Stedman’s commanding officer, Colonel LouisFourgeoud, ledexpeditionsofmercenarysoldiers into the junglesofSurinametokillorcapturetherebelsanddestroytheir crops andvillages. TheMaroons couldnothope todefeat Fourgeoud inapitchedbattle, so theyretreatedtosafehavenswhere they could ambush pursuing soldiers. In Bartolozzi’s engraving, Colonel Fourgeoud has led his troops intoadeepswampandispointing thewaytowardarebel village. A slave wades ahead of the colonel to test the bottom withhis feet forholesanddrop-offs.Fourgeoud’s soldiers carry their firearms high in the air to keep their flintlocks and powderdry,while rebels indistantpalmtrees firedownuponthem. Stedman’smemoir details the hazards of a jungle campaign— the tropical climate, dense vegetation, biting insects, dangerous animals, fatal diseases, and lack of food—but these miseries pale in comparison to his account of abuses endured by the slaves of Suriname. More than 100 images of the torture of slavesandother scenesofacolonyatwarwereadapted from Stedman’s drawings and engraved by Bartolozzi, the British poet and painter William Blake, and other artists. Bartolozzi was born in Florence, Italy, between the years 1725 and 1730. At the age of 18 he was apprenticed to the German Italian engraver Joseph Wagner, for whom he produced book illustrations and single prints. In 1754 Bartolozzi completed his apprenticeship and established his own workshop, then spent some time in Rome studying with the engraver Giovanni Piranesi. In 1764hemetRichardDalton, anart dealer whowasKeeperof theKing’sDrawingsandMedals forGeorgeIII of Great Britain. Dalton paid Bartolozzi’s expenses to London and arranged for him to be appointed Engraver to the King. Bartolozzi spentmoney lavishly andwas eager to accept commissions to payhis debts.His reputation as an artistwas based onengravingsofbiblical andmythological subjects, buthealso made images for contemporary works such as Stedman’s narrative.Bartolozzi hadbeen trainedas apainter aswell as anengraver and was adept at improving the drawings of amateurs. Stedman’sdrawingsandwatercolorswereethnographicallyaccurate, but he was not a trained artist, and his images almost certainly were enhanced by Bartolozzi and others. After the episode inMarch Through a Swamp in Pursuit of Slaves,ColonelFourgeoudandhismencameuponarebel town and attacked it. The rebels briefly returned fire, then burned their huts and escaped through a marsh on a bridge of logs. The Maroons managed to evacuate their town’s entire population alongwith food stores of rice, yams, and cassava, leaving nothing for the soldiers to eat, and covering the noise of the maneuver by shouting, blowing horns, and firing their weapons into theair. SeveralofFourgeoud’smenreceivedgunshotwounds in thebattle,butmostof the injurieswereminor— lacking leadammunition, the rebelshad loadedtheir gunswith pebbles, buttons, and coins. Fourgeoud considered this campaign a success because a Maroon village was destroyed and its inhabitants were chased deeper into the jungle. Conflicts between Maroons and the Surinamese government have arisen onmany occasions from the 18th century to the present day. The six major Maroon tribes of Suriname andneighboring FrenchGuiana are theworld’s largest concentrationof independentsocieties formedbyescapedslaves.They livebyhorticulture, fishing,andhuntingandhavetheirownlanguages based on African and Amerindian dialects with elementsofEnglish,Portuguese,andDutch.Acurrentdisputewith the government is over control ofmining operations in territories controlled by theMaroons. Although slaverywas not abolished in Surinameuntil 1873, the publication of Stedman’s narrative in 1796helped to erodepublic support for the slave trade inEuropeand its colonies.Thebookwas translated into several languagesandpublishedinmorethan25editions.Stedman’sdescriptions of the brutality of plantation life debunked themyth that slavery was a benign, civilizing influence. By his own admission, Stedmanwas an opportunist and amercenary, but he wasalsoa truth-teller, andhisnarrativeenduresasa case study of violence and human rights abuses resulting from the absolute control of one group of people by another. To counter the argument that slaveswere better off onNewWorld plantations thanlivingundercomparativelyprimitiveconditions intheirnative lands, Stedman’s storyof theMaroon rebellionproved that slaves were willing to endure hardships to escape from bondage andwould fight to preserve their freedom.

Review: Variety, Archaeology, and Ornament: Renaissance Architectural Prints from Column to Cornice

Variety, Archaeology, and Ornament: Renaissance Architectural Prints from Column to Cornice . University of Virginia Art Museum. 26 August–18 December 2011. This genesis of this compelling exhibition is a collection of twenty-three mid-sixteenth-century architectural prints acquired by the University of Virginia some thirty years ago. The prints are of various capitals and bases, some quite elaborate but matching none of the canonical orders with which we are most familiar. While several can be linked to known ancient monuments, others are from sources unknown, and some appear to be inventions. Their engraver is identified only by the initials G.A., with a tiny image of a caltrop (a small spiked weapon spread on the ground to inhibit the advance of mounted troops). Master G.A. may be Giovanni Agucchi, a mid-sixteenth-century Italian engraver, but the attribution remains conjectural. The prints are a reminder of how single-leaf architectural prints accelerated the spread of information on classical architecture during the formative years of the Italian Renaissance. The printed image was just then coming into its own and made knowledge of Roman antiquity widely accessible to an eager audience as never before. Moreover, the prints are evidence of how this particular master, along with numerous others, quickly absorbed and shared the richness and variety of the wealth of ancient architectural details scattered about. Using Master G.A. prints as a foundation, the …

The Iconography of the Last World Emperor: A Study of a Late Fifteenth-Century Prophetic Image

A complex allegorical late fifteenth-century picture of which the original is lost survives only in a series of variously degraded copies, be they either German woodcuts or Italian engravings. This image has remained unsatisfactorily explained, no doubt because of its unconventional iconography. Instead of the usual interpretation of the picture as a satirical comment on the contemporary political situation, we propose to understand it as a prophetic image announcing the imminent coming of the Second Charlemagne – a French king who would become the Last World Emperor – turning thus an anachronistic journalistic picture into a more convincing image of eschatological hope.

Framed in Fifteenth-Century Florence

Previous articleNext article No AccessFramed in Fifteenth-Century FlorenceSuzanne BoorschSuzanne Boorsch Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Metropolitan Museum Journal Volume 372002 Sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/1513072 Views: 2Total views on this site Copyright 2002 The Metropolitan Museum of ArtPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Ingres in Reproduction

One aspect of the historiography of nineteenth‐century art has been the virtual exclusion from serious attention of the reproductive engravings that played such an important role in establishing the reputations of the painters of the period. Benjamin's well‐known essay on ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ has led to a disproportionate emphasis on the importance of lithography and photography as harbingers of a new age, and perhaps incidentally helped to exclude from consideration those photographers specializing in the reproduction of paintings, who could be considered to be in direct rivalry with the engravers. The significant investment which Ingres had in the reproduction of his works becomes much clearer when we look closely at his long and friendly relationship with the Italian engraver Luigi Calamatta. This article uses published and unpublished material relating to Calamatta and other engravers to clarify the point that Ingres was continually preoccupied with the need to have his work engraved, but unable to ensure the results that he desired – partly because each new print offered the possibility of amending a previous composition, and partly because he did not succeed in establishing a strong relationship with a dealer such as Goupil. Ingres's relation to lithography is also considered, in relation to his own practice and that of the lithographer Sudre, who reproduced some of his works. Finally, the contribution of contemporary photographers to the reproduction of Ingres's work is summarised, with special emphasis on his mixed experiences with the most acclaimed reproduction photographer of the day, the Englishman Robert Jefferson Bingham.

Truth and Bizzarria in an Engraving of Lo stregozzo

Although sixteenth-century print images of witchcraft from Germany are well known, this large Italian engraving, associated stylistically with Michelangelo, is a relatively obscure oddity. It is argued here that the print was made to quell unrest over the execution of ten people for “Il Corso” (the Course or Procession), that is, gathering at night for devil worship, in Mirandola. Particular as its circumstances seem to have been, the engraving provides evidence of the problematics of the imagination, the viewer's as much as the artist's, in a world in which fantasia tipped easily from legitimate to illegitimate realms.

The Elizabethan wall paintings of Hill Hall: influences and techniques

Executed c. 1570 for Sir Thomas Smith, Queen Elizabeth I's ambassador to Paris, the wall paintings of Hill Hall are among the finest of their period. Including both biblical and classical themes, the paintings are based on a series of Italian engravings and Flemish woodcuts. While European architectural influence of this period is well known, the response of English wall paintings to influences from the continent has been less widely examined. Since 1994, the paintings at Hill Hall have been the subject of an extensive programme of investigation and analysis. Detailed examination of the original materials and painting techniques has shed considerable light on the little-known field of wall painting practice of this period. In addition, comparison of the print sources with both the underdrawing and the finished paintings reveals the adaptations made for a different medium and a different culture.

The Master of the "Sola-Busca Tarocchi" and the Rediscovery of Some Ferrarese Engravings of the Fifteenth Century

The article examines an important series of seventy-eight Italian engravings, known as the Sola-Busca Tarocchi, and attributes them decisively to the late quattrocento Ferrarese school. The Master of the Sola-Busca Tarocchi remains anonymous, but a num­ber of other prints can be assigned to his hand, most notably a group that had been published in1949 but then dropped out of sight. These and several other works, distinctive in both style and iconog­raphy, are herein ascribed to the Master, who emerges as a major figure in the field of early Italian engraving. Lists of prints attributed to or associated with the Master of the Sola-Busca Tarocchi are included in appendices.

Early Italian Engravings for Religious Orders

Early Italian Engravings for Religious Orders

Figures et personnages de l'iconographie politique italienne (1789-1799)

Christian-Marc Bosséno : Figures and Characters of Italian Political Iconography (1789-1799). This author studies the abundant Italian iconography as it expressed reactions to events in France. Before 1796 Italian engravings concentrated on portraits of political leaders and counter-revolutionary prints also circulated, especially at the time of the king's execution. The coming of the French stimulated the production of pro- Jacobin prints using caricature and allegory to mock the ancien régime and opening the way for the myth of a new hero, Bonaparte. Counter-revolutionary propaganda made a comeback particularly in 1799 and turned the allegories against its enemies to attack the personification of the Republic and to denounce the ravages of French occupation.

An Allegory of Renaissance Politics in a Contemporary Italian Engraving: The Prognostic of 1510

An Allegory of Renaissance Politics in a Contemporary Italian Engraving: The Prognostic of 1510

The Earliest Music Printing in France

The printing of music from movable type was a relatively late development in the history of printing. The Gregorian chant of the church, which involved only one voice or voices in unison and notes of uniform duration, could be reproduced in print from wooden blocks without the use of metal type. Such music appeared in printed books as early as the 1470s. But the newer polyphonic music involved several voices and more complex notation. In polyphony each voice sings different music, and the notes have various durations, indicated by separate note forms and dots. Furthermore there are rests, clefs, and proportional signs for a printer to deal with. It took a great deal of experimentation to solve the problems of casting these elements in metal and then placing the music type together in a coherent fashion. The first successful printing of polyphonic music from movable type was not achieved until 1501, when Ottaviano dei Petrucci published in Venice a group of French chansons and other works for three or four voices, under the title Harmonice musices odhecaton A. Petrucci's process required three impressions at first: one for the staves, one for the notes and other musical signs, and a third for the text, initial letters, signatures, and page numbers. Later the number of impressions was reduced to two, but his system still remained cumbersome and costly. Another method, that of incising all the music with the note shapes and other signs on a wooden block, was adapted by the Italian engraver Andrea Antico for polyphonic music from its earlier use for printing chant. He left a shallow trench in the wood to insert the text in metal type under each staff, so that a single impression was made for each page. And yet the time involved in cutting all these shapes into wood must have made this process too very expensive. Petrucci printed music in Venice until 1520, with some periods of interruption. Antico printed woodcut music books in Rome and then in Venice from 1510 to 1521. From 1522 to 1533 there is no trace of him, but from 1533 to 1539

Jacopo della Nave or Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau?

Cabinet des Estampes in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, has for many years been attributed to Jacopo della Nave, and was published by Arthur M. Hind in his Early Italian Engraving as by an anonymous engraver of the sixteenth century.' It is the purpose of this note to suggest that, instead, the artist in question is the Frenchman Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau. Jacopo della Nave is an extremely elusive creature; he appears in none of the obvious sources-neither in other museum and library print rooms nor in dictionaries of artists, with the exception of Zani,2 who seems to have started the misnomer simply by naming the artist from the monogram on two of the prints, IA with a boat. The nameJacopo della Nave thereafter appears in the catalogue of the Bibliotheque Nationale's Reserve by Courboin,3 and although Hind was doubtful about it, he had nothing else to suggest. He thought that these seven prints were by the same hand as an Italian Virgin and Child (Figure I). This seems to be an obvious mistake: the Virgin and Child is by one artist, an Italian, and will therefore not be mentioned here again, while the other seven (Figures 2-8) are by an entirely different artist, a Frenchman. If there is any question that this group is by a single artist, details of the cherub heads or of the shields, for instance, link the whole group irrevocably. It seems highly unlikely that anyone with the name Jacopo (if we are to consider that name for a moment) would abbreviate it by capitalizing the first two letters of his first name only, IA. The more usual abbreviations of Jacopo are Iac. (or Jac.) and Io. (or Jo.), not I A (or J A)--I and J being interchangeable equivalents to all intents and purposes. It seems more probable that instead of being an abbreviation these are initials and that the A stands for a second name (Figure 9). The della Nave, the name evidently invented by Zani, seems simply to refer to the little boat above the initials. Now a caravelle under sail is part of the coat of arms of the city of Paris.4 It was used as a symbol and emblem of Paris from time out of mind, for instance on coins and medals of the thirteenth century. In the temporary

Early Italian Engraving: A Critical Catalogue with Complete Reproduction of all the Prints Described, Part II: Known Masters Other than Florentine, Monogrammists and Anonymous

Early Italian Engraving: A Critical Catalogue with Complete Reproduction of all the Prints Described, Part II: Known Masters Other than Florentine, Monogrammists and Anonymous

Arthur M. Hind,Early Italian Engraving: A Critical Catalogue with Complete Reproduction of all the Prints Described

(1951). Arthur M. Hind, Early Italian Engraving: A Critical Catalogue with Complete Reproduction of all the Prints Described. The Art Bulletin: Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 143-148.

Jacopo De' Barbari's Apollo and Dürer's Early Male Proportion Figures

Düer himse1f connected his early studies in proportion with the names of Jacopo de' Barbari, the North Italian engraver, and the Roman writer, Vitruvius, whose famous work on architecture1 contains a passage about the proportions of a well-formed human figure.2 The nature of these connections and their relation to the effect of Gothic methods on Dürer's early constructed figures is one of the much discussed Dürer problems.3 The chief aim of this essay is to call attention to a constructed figure by Barbari, the Apollo of the engraving B. 16, K. 14, its connections with Dürer, and, further, its debt to Leonardo da Vinci.