Estimate
€ 8.000 - 10.000
Sold
€ 10.170
The price includes buyer's premium
Do you have a similar item you would like to sell?
Information
woodcut
Large woodcut of two juxtaposed sheets, 710 x 520 mm., I stato su tre, 1540 after - 1550 before, restorations on the margins, within a modern green painted wooden frame. On the reverse, cartouche with file from the "La Bibliofila" bookshop in Milan.
Large woodcut of two juxtaposed sheets, 710 x 520 mm., I stato su tre, 1540 after - 1550 before, restorations on the margins, within a modern green painted wooden frame. On the reverse, cartouche with file from the "La Bibliofila" bookshop in Milan.
Specialist Notes
RARE VENETIAN POPULAR ENGRAVING.
"This large woodcut is obtained from two wooden matrices conserved in the Soliani Fund of the Estensi Galleries in Modena. The matrices were owned of the Milanese merchant Pietro Barelli His son Napoleone sold these and other woodcut matrices in 1887 to Adolfo Venturi when he repurchased the Modenese Soliani collection which for a certain period of time belonged to Barelli (inv. nos. 6528 and 6529; ALU.0054 -M) still present two different signatures that appear respectively: in a fragment preserved in the Archiginnasio Library (inscription: 1550 MG?, ALU.0054.3); in the matrix preserved in the Estensi Galleries.Three states of this print, the first without is other than the titration, the second bears the apocryphal monogram “1550 MG” at the bottom right, the third has no trace of this monogram, but the apocryphal inscription “DOMINICUS CAMPAGNOLA MDXVII” at the bottom left. This last inscription was perhaps engraved by the Milanese print merchant Pietro Barelli who in the 19th century, for a few years, owned the matrices (see ALU.0054-M). The specimen in the British Museum is the oldest known.
Blindfolded Fortuna, dressed only in a flowing drape like her hair, sits on a globe stuck into the top of a leafy tree. In his hands he holds two long rakes with which he randomly drops the sweet and bitter 'fruits' of destiny, with which the tree is loaded.At the foot of the tree, a varied and disorganized humanity welcomes the fruits distributed by Fortune. Some paradoxical scenes – such as a donkey weighed down by the weight of a sack of money and a king crowning a battered prisoner – evoke the topsy-turvy worlds of carnival. In the background ships sailing and sinking, cities flourishing and in flames.The Venetian typographer Francesco Vieceri (or Vicceri), in the 17th century, owned prints with the same plaque present in this woodcut. We cannot therefore be certain that it was Pietro Barelli who made this interpolation. A late edition of the great Martyrdom of the ten thousand martyrs on Mount Ararat (ALU.0201.1, .2) also came out of the Vieceri workshop, the woodcut engraved by Lucantonio degli Uberti at the end of the second decade, which could perhaps represent a source of inspiration for the inventor of this print and his humanity teeming around the Tree of Fortune. The stylistic and iconographic contents of the work should place it chronologically within the middle of the sixteenth century. Some stylistic echoes can also be found in the title page based on a design by Baldassarre Peruzzi of the divinatory book Triompho di Fortuna by Sigismondo Fanti, published in Venice in 1527, where the pope is seated on the globe and the astronomer supervises the scene." (Giorgio Cini Foundation, Atlas of Italian Renaissance Woodcuts, online).Only two other examples of this state are known in the world: in the British Library in London ( Collection William Russell Lugt 2648) and in Cambridge (Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, n. inv. 3.1989).The other seven known specimens are either of different states or, mostly, have only one sheet of the two .
"This large woodcut is obtained from two wooden matrices conserved in the Soliani Fund of the Estensi Galleries in Modena. The matrices were owned of the Milanese merchant Pietro Barelli His son Napoleone sold these and other woodcut matrices in 1887 to Adolfo Venturi when he repurchased the Modenese Soliani collection which for a certain period of time belonged to Barelli (inv. nos. 6528 and 6529; ALU.0054 -M) still present two different signatures that appear respectively: in a fragment preserved in the Archiginnasio Library (inscription: 1550 MG?, ALU.0054.3); in the matrix preserved in the Estensi Galleries.Three states of this print, the first without is other than the titration, the second bears the apocryphal monogram “1550 MG” at the bottom right, the third has no trace of this monogram, but the apocryphal inscription “DOMINICUS CAMPAGNOLA MDXVII” at the bottom left. This last inscription was perhaps engraved by the Milanese print merchant Pietro Barelli who in the 19th century, for a few years, owned the matrices (see ALU.0054-M). The specimen in the British Museum is the oldest known.
Blindfolded Fortuna, dressed only in a flowing drape like her hair, sits on a globe stuck into the top of a leafy tree. In his hands he holds two long rakes with which he randomly drops the sweet and bitter 'fruits' of destiny, with which the tree is loaded.At the foot of the tree, a varied and disorganized humanity welcomes the fruits distributed by Fortune. Some paradoxical scenes – such as a donkey weighed down by the weight of a sack of money and a king crowning a battered prisoner – evoke the topsy-turvy worlds of carnival. In the background ships sailing and sinking, cities flourishing and in flames.The Venetian typographer Francesco Vieceri (or Vicceri), in the 17th century, owned prints with the same plaque present in this woodcut. We cannot therefore be certain that it was Pietro Barelli who made this interpolation. A late edition of the great Martyrdom of the ten thousand martyrs on Mount Ararat (ALU.0201.1, .2) also came out of the Vieceri workshop, the woodcut engraved by Lucantonio degli Uberti at the end of the second decade, which could perhaps represent a source of inspiration for the inventor of this print and his humanity teeming around the Tree of Fortune. The stylistic and iconographic contents of the work should place it chronologically within the middle of the sixteenth century. Some stylistic echoes can also be found in the title page based on a design by Baldassarre Peruzzi of the divinatory book Triompho di Fortuna by Sigismondo Fanti, published in Venice in 1527, where the pope is seated on the globe and the astronomer supervises the scene." (Giorgio Cini Foundation, Atlas of Italian Renaissance Woodcuts, online).Only two other examples of this state are known in the world: in the British Library in London ( Collection William Russell Lugt 2648) and in Cambridge (Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, n. inv. 3.1989).The other seven known specimens are either of different states or, mostly, have only one sheet of the two .
Contact
More Lots
11