Monogrammist SK

The Battle of Ponte Milvio, after Raphael

[Rome? circa 1550]

engraving on four joined plates (image 360 × 1220 mm, sheets 405 × 1255 mm), counter-proof on parchment, in first state (of two), lettered on a tablet (here in reverse) ‘Imp. Caes. Constantinus Prostrato Ad Pontem Milvium Tyrano Maxentio Post Graviss. ccc. Fere Annorum Persecutionem Afflictam Christi Ecclesiam Libertati Asseruit. Raphael Pinxit in Vaticano’, with the printmaker’s monogram beneath ‘sk’.

provenance William August Ackermann (1793–1865) — sale by Rudolph Weigel, Catalog der sorgfältigst gewählten und kostbaren Sammlung von ältesten, älteren und neueren Kupfer­stichen, Radirungen und anderen Kunstblättern von den wichtigsten zur Kunstgeschichte gehö­rigen Büchern und einigen anderen Kunstgegenständen, Leipzig, 29 March 1853, lot 463 (link; Lugt 21288) — Christie’s, Important old master prints from a German family of title, Part ii, London, 18 June 1992, lot 93 — Robin Halwas Limited¹ — Private collection, usa

Old soiling, creases, small hole near the top of the fourth plate, and lesser defects.

Hinged on acid-free board, framed.

A counterproof on parchment of the Monogrammist sk’s large print repro­ducing Raphael’s ‘The Battle of Ponte Milvio’ in the Sala di Costantino of the Vatican (completed by Giulio Romano and Giovanni Francesco Penni in 1524).

The print is not based on the finished fresco, but on an unknown modello (interme­diary drawing) of Raphael’s design, transferred to the copper plate in the normal manner, which resulted in the printed image being reversed left to right. To regain the direction of the original fresco, this counterproof was taken: clean vellum sheets were placed on top of freshly-inked impressions, and run through the press. The use of parchment as a support is unusual in sixteenth-century Italy and suggests a spe­cially dedicated copy.²

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Counterproof printed on four sheets of vellum (detail, sheet [1])

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Our counterproof was made from an impression of the print in first state. Later impressions have an added publication line ‘Antverpiae [excu]debat Martin Petreius in insigni fontis prope [novam?] in Bursam’. This publisher Marten Peeters van Gheele was active at Antwerp between 1533 and 1563 and is known for striking old plates obtained from a variety of sources, including large subjects of Lucas van Leyden (printed in folio, full-sheet or extra-folio),³ as well as first states of reproduc­tive prints engraved by Philips Galle.⁴

The productions of the Monogrammist sk and Monogrammist sr are confused by early print historians and the identity of sk is still uncertain.⁵ Nagler describes this print as ‘in vier Platten in M. Cartaros Manier’⁶ and similarities of style are appar­ent. Mario Cartaro was a printmaker active in Rome after about 1557 (d. 1620), who signed much of his work with the monogram mk or mkav (Marius Kartarus Viter­bensis); it could be that sk was an older relation. Alternatively, the restriking of the plate at Antwerp could signify that sk was active in Northern Europe, not in Italy.

These impressions are known to the writer

first state ● Vienna, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, It. 21, p.23⁷ ● Unlocated (Galerie Bassenge, ‘Auktion 95: Druckgraphik des 15.–19. Jahrhunderts’, Berlin, 3 June 2010, lot 5190)⁸

second state ● Florence, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe degli Uffizi, vol. 89 (st. vol. 7526)⁹ ● Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute, 2002.PR.82**¹⁰ ● Rome, Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Fondo Corsini, 7, It. Sec. xvi, formato grande, cart. 345¹¹ ● Unlocated (formerly Prague, Sammlung Sternberg-Manderscheid: Johann G.A. Frenzel, Sammlung der Kupferstiche und Handzeichnungen Sr. Excellenz des Herrn Grafen Franz von Sternberg-Manderscheid, Dresden, 9 May 1836 etc., lot 2768; link)

unknown state ● Unlocated (Sotheby & Co., Important album of engravings, etchings and woodcuts collected in the 16th century from a Continental Princely collection, London, 10 March 1964, lot 106 – part lot)¹²

The only earlier print reproducing the decoration of the Sala di Costantino is a detail of ‘The Battle of Ponte Milvio’ engraved in 1544 by Giulio Bonasone (Bartsch xv, p.34 no. 84) after a drawing attributed to Giulio Romano. The Monogrammist sk did not depend on that source, nor did he utilise the well-known drawing (on two sheets measuring together 376 × 851 mm) now in the Musée du Louvre (Cabinet des des­sins no. 3872).¹³ sk’s print is significantly closer to the fresco, in the organiza­tion of the foreground and in the representation of the architecture of the bridge;¹⁴ his landscape background is simpler than both the Louvre’s drawing and the finished fresco, with the three angels with swords in the sky notable omissions. Most likely sk’s modello was lost in the process of transfer to the copper plate.

The Monogrammist sk’s print was copied by the French engraver Pierre Woeiriot de Bouzey (1532–1599) in the mid-1560s (Inventaire du Fonds Français, ii, p. 171 no. 53; Robert-Dumesnil, Le peintre graveur français, Paris 1844, vii, p. 95 no. 208). Woeiriot reversed his model, so that the print is again in the same direction as the fresco, and reduces the composition (from 360 × 1220 to 158 × 498 mm). He includes the lettered tablet on sk’s print (which differs from the inscription on the fresco), but transfers its final line (Raphael Pinxit in Vaticano) to a cartouche he adds along the top (a dedication, in French, to Charles iii, Duke of Lorraine).¹⁵

About 1571, the Roman printmaker Giovanni Battista Cavalieri (circa 1525–1601) produced an engraving of the subject, in the same direction as the fresco (on four plates, joined 410 × 1206 mm).¹⁶ Cavalieri includes Raphael’s three angels and introduces decorative elements; otherwise his print closely resembles sk’s. It could be that sk and Cavalieri shared the same modello, or more probably that Cavalieri depended partly on sk’s print and partly on other sources (like Marten Peeters, he is known for re-striking old plates and copying earlier prints).

A third print reproducing the fresco, also in the correct direction (on two plates, joined 326 × 1399 mm), was commissioned circa 1575 by the Roman publisher Lorenzo Vaccari from the printmaker Cornelis Cort.¹⁷ Cort’s modello is identified as a drawing by Hans Speckaert.

literature Karl-Heinrich von Heinecken, Nachrich­ten von Künstlern und Kunstsachen (Leipzig 1768–1769), ii, pp.348, 476; Johann D. Passavant, Le peintre-graveur, vi : Suite des maîtres italiens du xve et xvie siècle (Leipzig 1864), pp.164–166 no. 9