Sunday, April 30, 2017

Engravings and Etchings before 1600

Jacopo de' Barbari
Pegasus
ca. 1509-1516
engraving
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jacopo de' Barbari
Two old men reading
ca. 1509-1515
engraving
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Antonio Salamanca
Portraits of Lodovico Ariosto and Jacopo Sannazaro
1520-50
engraving
 (from one plate  to be separated after printing  a rare, unseparated impression)
British Museum

The truth is this, that I full oft have seen
her yvorie corps and bene with her all night,
and naked layne her naked arms between
and full enjoyne the frutes of love's delight:
Now judge who hath in greatest favour been,
to which of us she doth pertayne in right, 
and then geve place and yeeld to me mine owne,
sith by just proofes I now have made it knowne.

Just proofes? (quoth Ariodant) nay shamefull lyes,
nor will I credit geve to any word.
Is this the finest tale you can devise?
Hoped you that with this I could be dord?
No no, but sith a slander foule doth rise
by thee to her, maintaine it with thy sword.
I call thee lying traytor to thy face,
And meane to prove it in this present place.

 from Orlando Furioso by Lodovico Ariosto, translated into English heroical verse by Sir John Harrington (London: Richard Field, 1591)

Antonio Salamanca
Chariot of Diana
1541
engraving
British Museum

Jacob Binck
The Witch attacking the Devil
1529
engraving
British Museum

Virgil Solis
Design for egg-shaped vase
ca. 1530-62
etching, engraving
British Museum

Giovanni Battista Scultori
Statue of Athena, back view
1538
engraving
British Museum

Parmigianino
Tiburtine Sibyl with Emperor Augustus
before 1540
engraving
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Parmigianino
Venus and Cupid
before 1540
engraving
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Maarten van Heemskerck
Tamar and Judah
before 1574
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Federico Barocci
St Francis receiving stigmata
ca. 1580-81
 etching, engraving, with stopping-out
British Museum

Hendrik Goltzius
Leander
1580
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Jan Pietersz Saenredam after Herndrik Goltzius
Bacchus, Venus and Ceres
16th century
engraving
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Philips Galle after Johannes Stradanus
Engraving Workshop
ca. 1593-98
engraving
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The way people fly
in old engravings, so clear-cut
so credulous.

Between portraits of emperors
and soldiers, vertebrates and 
whales . . . 

– from the poem Engraving by Peter Theunynck, translated by Willem Groenewegen