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An Album of prints of ca 1560 in the Bibliotheca Brookeriana
We have commented elsewhere on the rarity of sixteenth-century albums in which the owners pasted, mounted, or bound their prints for safekeeping.1 Many such albums have been broken by dealers, so that they could sell the prints individually;2 or else taken apart by curators, so the prints could be stored in accordance with an institutions’ classification system.3 Those that have survived without alteration offer opportunities to learn how prints were originally collected, used and appreciated, and to see the individual print in a contemporary context. This post describes briefly an album of fifty prints assembled about 1560, which has remained intact to the present day.
The prints in the album are diverse, without obvious arrangement, from French, Italian, and German sources. Two are dated (1537, 1542) and five are derived from a series published in 1551. Included are prints reproducing designs for decors or objects intended for the royal residence at Fontainebleau, but etched or engraved by printmakers working in Parisian ateliers, not at the château itself. These are a set of twelve prints narrating the myth of Proserpina and Pluto, as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, etched by Léon Davent after designs by Léonard Thiry (active at Fontainebleau ca 1536-late 1540s); eight engraved designs for table objects, designed either by Thiry or by his master at Fontainebleau, Rosso Fiorentino, engraved by René Boyvin or Pierre Milan; and a set of ten designs of grotesques (wall decoration all’antica), copied by an anonymous printmaker from a set engraved by the Florentine sculptor Domenico del Barbiere (active at Fontainebleau ca 1537-ca 1550). All of these impressions are printed on French papers.
Some prints are of indisputable Italian origin. The matrices of a pair depicting the classical deities Ceres and Bacchus (one of them signed by the Monogrammist IBO) later came into the possession of the Roman publisher Antonio Lafreri, who included impressions in copies of the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae (Lafreri’s heir, Claudio Duchetti, eventually added his excudit to one plate, thus producing a second state). Another print, portraying Leda and the Swan in an oval, signed with the monogram of Enea Vico and dated 1542, is known in states with lettering added by the Roman publisher Antonio Salamanca. The impression in the album is in first state and is printed on Italian paper.
Two prints are problematic. One copies (in reverse) an engraving attributed to Marco Dente after a design by Raphael, representing a Triton abducting a nymph. The original matrice remained in Rome and years later was published with the Salamanca excudit. The copy seems to be unknown. It probably was engraved locally (for Lafreri?); but it could be French, or Flemish. The other print reproduces a composition by the Bolognese draughtsman Tommaso da Bologna Vincidor, an artist in Raphael’s studio, then in the Low Countries. It is signed by an engraver with a conjoined FG monogram and a date of 1537. Bartsch placed this printmaker in northern Europe; Suzanne Boorsch identifies the monogram with the Bolognese printmaker Girolamo Fagiuoli, who worked in Rome for Salamanca. A thorough examination of FG’s prints including their watermarks will be necessary to determine his domicile (no watermark is visible in the impression bound in this album).
Two groups of prints are by German artists. Although the watermarks in their paper are indistinct, it is certain that they were published in Germany. One group is Georg Pencz’s Six Triumphs after Petrarch, in first (or only) states, early impressions with some guide lines for the lettering still visible. These engravings were conceived during Pencz’s brief visit to Rome, in 1539, however all impressions seem to have been published after his return to Nuremberg. The other group is comprised of five unsigned prints intended as exempla for goldsmiths and other artisans. These are credited to Mathias Zündt, a journeyman in Wenzel Jamnitzer’s Nuremberg workshop, and belong to an etched series published there in 1551.
The last four etchings in the album appear to have a common origin. All are fantasies, the first three pseudo-antique architectural monuments, the last a mammoth, architectonic tabernacle crafted in wood in Gothic style. A unicorn watermark in the paper of three prints does not help to establish the place or date of their publication.
One can only speculate about how these prints from different French, Italian, and German publishers were collected. Most appeared within a narrow range of years, between the late 1540s and the late 1550s. Were they available for purchase in a single printshop, or were they bought separately over time? And where? Were they gathered to provide an artisan with a repertoire of models, or collected by an amateur, appreciated for what they record rather than for their utility?
Upper cover (album dimensions 275 x 205 mm)
Lower cover
Lower pastedown (discarded leaf from a book printed at Landshut in 1516)
The album’s binding was made as economically as possible, utilising a fragment of a 14th century parchment lectionary for the covers, and leaves taken from a book printed by Johann Weißenburger at Landshut in 1516 for pastedowns.4 We suppose it was fashioned in Southern Germany.
The earliest recognisable evidence of ownership is a cancelled inscription in the upper margin of the first print (see image in Appendix below). It is not entirely legible; we read: “Sum Georgij [surname? or Vicarij?] Eÿstadij” (Eichstätt, about 100km from Landshut). Beneath is another inscription, presumably entered by the obliterator: “Sum Io[ann]es Stromair Parochi Gerolfnigensis ano 1618” (Gerolfing, about 24km from Eichstätt).
A Johann Stromair (Stromayr, Strohmayer) is recorded as the Catholic parish priest (parochus) of Gerolfing. Expelled from his parish during the Swedish invasion, he became after 1632 parish priest at nearby Gaimersheim (in succession to Andreas Reismüller, d. 10 June 1632). In 1640, Stromair was invited by Otto von Hochenfeld (1614-1685) to Aistersheim, Austria, where he became the first Catholic priest after the Reformation, and died there in 1668. A memorial slab laid in Pfarrkirche Aistersheim records him as “a man of more than eighty years” (et virum plus octogenarium) and a master of the liberal arts of the Catholic university at Ingolstadt (L.L.A.A. Magistrum Ingolstadio).5 Subsequent owners of the volume, until its acquisition in 2009 by Librairie Paul Jammes, Paris, are unknown. It was purchased from Jammes by T. Kimball Brooker in 2011.
1. See the discussions of an album of Androuet du Cerceau’s prints of furniture designs bound in France ca 1580 [link] and of an album containing 15 books or print series, together with 3 series of drawings, bound in Bern, Switzerland, ca 1604 [link]. On early practices of collecting prints in albums, and the loss of evidence due to mounting, storage, etc., see Anthony Griffiths, “The Archaeology of the Print,” in Collecting Prints and Drawings in Europe, c. 1500-1750 (Aldershot 2003), pp.9-27.
2. A recent example of this is the destruction in 1999 of an album containing at least 166 etchings and engravings put together in Venice in 1568; see Joyce Zelen, “The Venetian Print Album of Johann Georg I Zobel Von Giebelstadt” in The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 63 (2015), pp.2-51.
3. The destruction by the Victoria & Albert Museum of an album containing nine books or print series, for the purpose of storing them in separate locations (according to artists to whom they were attributed), is recounted by Elizabeth Miller, “Antonio Lafreri’s architecture and ornament volumes: Crossing the boundary between books and volumes of prints in late sixteenth-century Rome” in Renaissance Studies 33 (2019), pp.761-788. See also the discussion of the Pázmány–Vershbow–Brooker album of Lafreri’s architectural publications on this website [link].
4. The humanist Dietrich von Plieningen’s translations of works of practical morality by Lucian, Horace, and Juvenal, entitled In disem buechlein ist begriffen ein anntwort auff zwo fragen (Landshut: Johann Weißenburger for the translator, 10 April 1516). The book is in folio format, A-D6. The upper pastedown is folio C2; the lower C6.
5. The only “Ioannes Stromair” in the university’s register of matriculations arrived in 1585, “regulari Sancti Augustini ex [Augustinerchorherrenstift] Rottenbuch grammaticae studiosis”; see Götz von Pölnitz, Die Matrikel der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Teil I: Ingolstadt, Band II: 1600-1700 (Munich 1939-1940), p.1166. A transcription of the memorial tablet is given by Ferdinand Wirmsberger, Aistersheim und seine Besitzer (Wels 1859), p.8 [link]. For mention of Stromair’s previous appointments in Gerolfing and Gaimersheim, see “Gaimersheim” in Sammelblatt des Historischen Vereines in und für Ingolstadt 18 (1893), p.40 [link].
appendix
The numbers below in boldface are those written by an early owner along the bottom of each recto.
1-10
Anonymous etcher: Suite of 10 numbered etchings of grotesques by an unknown artist, nos. 1 and 10 lettered at bottom centre: Cum priuilegio Regis, ca 1550-1560
Plate 1 in series of 10 (platemark 132 x 198 mm)
Ten prints, 131/134 x 192/200 mm, imposed in pairs facing each other on five sheets, gathered inside a blank sheet, folded to produce a quire of 12 leaves. Watermarks: fragments in print nos. 1, 3, 6 [image], 7 [image], 9 of a mark (or marks) of the manufacturer Jean Nivelle, Troyes: lily, surmounted by a four-leaf clover, underneath in a cartouche: J Nivelle; compare Briquet 12059 (1553 [link]), 7084 (1555, [link]).
Reversed copies (with variations) of engravings made ca 1540-1545 by Domenico del Barbiere, a Florentine painter, engraver, sculptor, stuccoist, and mosaicist, working at Fontainebleau in the years 1537-1540, then elsewhere in France until about 1565. These anonymous prints were once attributed to the print publisher Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, who issued at Orléans in 1550 and 1562 sets of small grotesques adapted from Italian sources, and at Paris in 1566 a set of large grotesques. Lettering on the frontispiece and last of the ten numbered prints states that the images are protected by a royal privilege against plagiarism and forgery. Another set of anonymous copies of Barbiere’s prints, of similar dimensions to this one, but executed in the same direction and numbered at lower right, has also been credited to Du Cerceau.1 We understand that both of these anonymous sets of Barbiere copies will be excluded from Peter Fuhring’s forthcoming catalogue of Du Cerceau’s engraved oeuvre.2
other impressions
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1981.1000.1 (1-4) (pls. 5 [link], 6 [link], and two of 9 [link, link])
Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, collections Jacques Doucet, 8 Res 114 (pls. 1-10; digitised, [link]) (ex Edmond Foulc sale, Paris, 3-6 June 1914, lot 75bis no. 52 [link])
references
Félix Herbet, Les graveurs de l’école de Fontainebleau; Dominique Florentin et les burinistes (Paris 1899), pp.13-14 nos. 17-26 [link]
Henri Zerner, École de Fontainebleau, gravures (Paris 1969), p.xxxvii and DB12-22 (note)3
Janet Byrne, Renaissance Ornament Prints and Drawings (New York 1981), pp.66-67 (MMA impression of pl. 6 illustrated) [link]
1. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 59.642.136 (pl. 8) [link]. Illustrated by Janet Byrne, “Some attributions undone” in Master Drawings 13 (1975), pp.240-248 as Fig. 7; and in Ornament and architecture: Renaissance drawings, prints and books (Providence 1980), p.23 no. 19 & Pl. 18. From the same purchase in 1959 came pl. 7 of the series (Acc. no. 59.642.135; [link]). Compare image above: Barbiere’s print (image, Zerner DB13); anonymous copy in same direction, numbered 8 (image, MMA, 59.642.136).
2. The conventional attribution to Du Cerceau was sustained by Peter Fuhring, in The French Renaissance in prints from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Los Angeles 1994), pp.156, 371; however, Fuhring soon recanted, and the set was not included in his “Catalogue sommaire des estampes” in Jacques Androuet du Cerceau: ‘un des plus grands architectes que se soient jamais trouvés en France’ (Paris 2010), pp.301-321.
3. Zerner writes (note for DB 12-22) of the supposed original prints engraved by Domenico del Barbiere: “Nous n’avons pas retrouvé d’exemplaire complet de cette série. Herbet, lorsqu’il l’a décrite, a confondu les originaux de Domenico avec une copie à l’eau-forte et en sens inverse qu’il décrit comme un second état des planches parce que ces feuilles sont numérotées alors que les originaux ne le sont pas. Renouvier attribuait cette copie à Ducerceau, probablement à juste titre. Cette copie, qui ne comporte pas la pièce liminaire, n’est pas seulement en sens inverse, mais elle présente aussi une variante en ce que deux motifs de la planche 2 sont éliminés et utilisés dans la planche 3 dont on ne connaît pas l’original. Ceci nous fait nous demander si les planches à l’eau-forte pour lesquelles nous n’avons pas les burins correspondants ont bien eu des originaux de Domenico, ou s’il ne s’agit pas de suppléments apportés par Ducerceau. Nous introduisons donc ici les eaux-fortes qui n’ont pas de prototype, mais sans être assurés qu’il existe des originaux de Domenico.”
11-22
Léon Davent: Suite of 12 numbered etchings by Léon Davent after Léonard Thiry, representing the story of Pluto and Prosperina in “ruinscapes”, lettered and numbered ♦ Plutonem, Veneris iussu, ferit arte Cupido, / Leonardi Thiry, Belgae, pictoris longa excellentiss. inve[n]tum / 1 ♦ Ex Pergusa Hecaten rapit ad sua tartara Pluto / 2 ♦ At Nympharum Hecates Scapulis timor addidit alas / 3 ♦ Plutoni Cianes aditum, non terra negauit / 4 ♦ Stellio fit Cererem irridens puer : illa sitibat: / 5 ♦ Ostendit Cereri Cianes quod nata reliquit / 6 ♦ Deuastat siculos frugum dea funditus agros / 7 ♦ Hic Arethusa docat Cererem, Proserpina quo sit. / 8 ♦ Ad gemitus Cereris flectuntur numina olimpi / 9 ♦ Tartareos gustans fructus Proserpina visa est / 10 ♦ Detulit Ascalaphus Hecaten, fit noctua ditis / 11 ♦ Ditis ac Cereris componit Iupiter iras /12, ca 1550-1560
Plate 7 in series of 12 (130 x 230 mm platemark)
Twelve prints, 130 x 230/235 mm, imposed in pairs facing each other on six sheets, gathered inside a blank sheet, folded to produce a quire of 14 leaves. First (of 2) states. Watermarks: fragments in print nos. 6, 8 [image], 9, 11, 12 of a mark (or marks) of a cluster of grapes with initials DR; compare Briquet 13154 (1530+ [link]). Same mark in the blank sheet.
The Flemish draughtsman Léonard Thiry who is named on the first print of this series joined the Fontainebleau studios of Rosso Fiorentino and Primaticcio about 1536. Similarities between these prints and the decoration of the Chambre du roi, executed in 1533-1535 under the direction of Primaticcio, have been noted; however, there is no evidence to indicate that Thiry participated in that project. Thiry probably returned home in the late 1540s, and according to Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, he died in Antwerp in 1550. A large number of his drawings remained behind and somehow became available to Parisian printmakers, primarily Pierre Milan, René Boyvin, and the engraver of this suite, Léon Davent. Davent had been one of the most prolific printmakers at Fontainebleau (Jenkins credits 95 etchings and engravings to this period of his activity).1 From about 1550, he was working from an atelier in the Rue-Saint-Jacques in Paris. A set of twelve engravings of similar dimensions, presenting the story of Callisto in rectangular landscapes, lettered likewise “Leonardi Thiry, Belgae, pictoris longe excellentiss. inventum” and “Cum priuilegio Regis,” also belongs to this latter stage of Davent’s career.2
other impressions
London, British Museum, 1851,0208.117-126 (apparently lacks pls. 3, 10 [link])
Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, 28-III-6, f. 54-65 [link]
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Reserve ED-8 (B, 1B)-FOL [link]
Rome, Istituto nazionale per la grafica, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe, Fondo Corsini, volume 57K35 (114516-114527) [link]
Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, 28.1 Geom. (12-1)-(12-12) [link]
references
J.D. Passavant, Le Peintre-graveur (Leipzig 1864), VI, pp.190-191 nos. 73-84 [link]
Félix Herbet, Les Graveurs de l’École de Fontainebleau (Paris 1896), p.93, nos. 157-168 [link]
André Linzeler & Jean Adhémar, Inventaire du fonds français: Graveurs du seizième siècle (Paris 1932-1938), II, p.295 [link]
Henri Zerner, École de Fontainebleau, gravures (Paris 1969), LD94 (describes only pl. 7, but attributes the series to Davent)
Henri Zerner, in L’École de Fontainebleau (Paris 1972), p.311 nos. 396-398 (pls. 6-8)
Jesús María González de Zárate, Real colección de estampas de San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Madrid 1992), III, nos. 1078-1089
1. C. Jenkins, Prints at the court of Fontainebleau, c. 1542-47 (Ouderkerk aan den IJssel 2017), I, pp.28-29.
2. Suzanne Boorsch, in The French Renaissance in prints from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Los Angeles 1994), no. 54
23-28
Georg Pencz: Set of 6 unnumbered engravings, each signed with the monogram of Georg Pencz, representing the Triumphs of Petrarch, lettered ♦ Tempus edax rerum tuque invidiosa vetustas / omnia destruitis qqc erant eut fuerint [The Triumph of time over fame] ♦ Nascentes morimur finis qz ab origine pendet / longius aut propius mors sua quenoz manet / 5 [The Triumph of death over time; the only numbered print in the series] ♦ Non illis studium vulgo loquire amantes / ampla salis forma est casta pudicitia [The Triumph of chastity over love] ♦ Libertus quomiam nulli iam restat amanti / nullus liber erit siovis amare volet [The Triumph of love] ♦ Fama peremus erit quam nec tonis ira nec ignes / nec poterit eerrum nec edax abolere vetustas [The Triumph of fame over chastity] ♦ Ut vento rapitur fuantis sic gloria mundo / omnia rretereunt pretere autare deum [The Triumph of eternity over death], ca 1539
The Triumph of Chastity (140 x 205 mm platemark)
Six prints, 150 x 210 mm (except “Non illis studium” and “Fama peremus erit”, each 140 x 205 mm). Bound in on their own paper, or on guard strips. All prints in first state. Watermarks: illegible in second, third and last print (in order of binding).
Landau proposes that this set was conceived and probably executed during Pencz’s stay in Rome, inspired in part by decoration he saw there on the façade of the Palazzo Milesi, and other buildings. The plates are not presented here in the order given by Petrarch.
other impressions
Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, GPencz AB 3.111 [link]
Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, O1911.295 [link]
London, British Museum, E,4.274 [link]
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 17.50.16-68 (-73); 62.635.497a (-502) [link]
Paris, Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques, Collection Edmond de Rothschild, L 40 LR/112-117 [link]
references
Adam von Bartsch, Le Peintre graveur (Vienna 1808), VIII, pp.357-358 nos. 117-122 [link]
Ludwig Döry, Katalog der Ornamentstich-Sammlung (Hamburg 1960), no. 644
David Landau, Catalogo completo dell’opera grafica di Georg Pencz (Milan 1978), p.42, nos. 116-121
Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Nuremberg, a Renaissance City, 1500-1618 (Austin, TX 1983), no. 108 (set lent by Philadelphia Museum of Art)
Robert Zijlma, Hollstein’s German engravings, etchings and woodcuts, 1400-1700, 31: Michael Ostendorfer (continued) to Georg Pencz (Roosendaal 1991), pp.199-205 nos. 97-102
29
Monogrammist FG: Two winged putti with a lioness and her cub, signed with a monogram and lettered on a tablet: RA VR IN [Raphael Urbino Invenit] 1537
121 x 218 mm. Bound in on its own paper. Watermark: none observed.
This print was engraved after a drawing attributed to the Bolognese draughtsman Tommaso Vincidor (1493-1534/1536), one of Raphael’s assistants in the decoration of the Vatican Logge, later a designer for tapestries in Flanders. The drawing (British Museum, 1957,0413.5 [link]) is believed to be connected with the lost cycle of tapestries known as the “Giuochi di putti”, commissioned in Brussels by Leo X for the Sala di Costantino of the Vatican. The identity of the printmaker (his monogram is read both as FG and GF) remains unknown. Bartsch placed his production (22 prints) with the German School; Maria Biasini identifies him as Guido Ruggieri,1 Suzanne Boorsch as Girolamo Faccioli (Fagiuoli).2
another impression
London, British Museum, V,6.48 [link] 1874,0808.178 [link]
London, Victoria & Albert Museum, Dyce 1907 [link]
references
Adam von Bartsch, Le Peintre graveur (Vienna 1808), IX, pp.27-28 no. 8 [link]
G.K. Nagler, Die Monogrammisten (Munich 1858-1879), II, no. 2115 [link], no. 2914, no. 8 [link]
John Shearman, Raphael in Early Modern Sources (1483-1602) (New Haven 2003), p.906 no. 1537/16
1. M. Biasini, “Le incisioni del Maestro FG italiano (Guido Ruggieri?)” in Grafica d’arte, no. 30, 1997, pp.2-9.
2. Suzanne Boorsch, “Salviati and prints: the question of Fagiuoli” in Francesco Salviati et la bella maniera: actes des colloques de Rome et de Paris (Rome 2001), pp.499-518 [link].
30
Anonymous engraver: Triton carrying off a nymph, copy of a print attributed both to Marco Dente and to Marcantonio Raimondi, after a design by Raphael, ca 1550 (?)
134 x 185 mm. Bound in on its own paper. Watermark: none observed.
Reversed copy of an engraving of about 1516 variously attributed to Marco Dente (Bartsch, XIV, p.185 no. 229 [link]; image) and to Marcantonio Raimondi.
The print appears to be unrecorded.
31
Enea Vico: Leda and the Swan, and a putto, in an oval, signed: E.V., and dated: 1542
140 x 160 mm. Bound in on its own paper. Watermark: Balance in a circle surmounted by a 5pt star [image]; comparable marks not traced in Briquet, or Piccard.
This engraving after a drawing by Francesco Salviati (Mortari, Boorsch) or Perino del Vaga (Bartsch) was produced soon after Vico’s arrival in Rome, while he was occupied with copying the antique sculpture collection of Cardinal Andrea della Valle and the decorations in the Domus Aurea. The print was later published by Antonio Salamanca.
other impressions
Baltimore, Museum of Art, Garrett Collection, 1946.112.4998 [link]
Hamburg, Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett, Inv. Nr. 683a [link]
London, British Museum, Ii,16.13 (formerly 2005,U.77) [link]
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 26.50.1(137) [link]
Philadelphia, Museum of Art, 1985-52-23014 [link]
references
Adam von Bartsch, Le Peintre graveur (Vienna 1813), XV, p.294 no. 25 (signed “Ant. Sal. exc”) [link]
Luisa Mortari, Francesco Salviati (Rome 1992), pp.305-306 no. 48
Suzanne Boorsch, “‘The Massacre of the Innocents’ after Francesco Salviati” in Print Quarterly 16 (1999), pp.266-273 (p.266)
32-33
Monogrammist I.BO (Giulio Bonasone): Two engravings ♦ a winged putto presenting to Ceres stems of grain (Allegory of the Earth), signed I.BO ♦ a winged putto presenting to the seated Bacchus a pot from which he drinks, while another putto passes him grapes, ca 1531-1576 (artist’s activity)
Two prints, 140 x 158 mm, 138 x 155 mm. Only state; state i/ii. Bound in on guard strips; the former remargined to border on right edge, the latter remargined left edge. Watermark: none observed.
These prints are pendants and sometimes exist on one sheet, as in the British Museum and Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Huelsen associated them with an entry “Altri Baccanali” in Lafreri’s Indice.
other impressions
London, British Museum, 1871,0812.757, H,6.46 [link; link]
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 17.3.1820; 41.72(2.148) [link]
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Riserva.S.6, tavv. 101a-b [link]
Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Ud gr. 2° 15 (75) oben links / rechts [link]
references
Adam von Bartsch, Le Peintre graveur (Vienna 1813), XV, pp.174-175 no. 2 (“Cette pièce est mal dessinée, et n’appartient à Bonasone en aucune manière”), no. 3 (“Cette pièce qui est du même faire que la précédente, ne porte point de marque” [link])
Christian Huelsen, “Das Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae des Antonio Lafreri” in Collectanea variae doctrinae Leoni S. Olschki (Munich 1921), p.158 no. 76 a-b (impression with address of the Roman publisher Claude Duchet)
Stefania Massari, Giulio Bonasone (Rome 1983), p.81 nos. 99-100
Birte Rubach, Ant. Lafreri Formis Romae: der Verleger Antonio Lafreri und seine Druckgraphikproduktion (Berlin 2016), pp.352-353 nos. 359-360
34-41
Pierre Milan or René Boyvin (?): Eight engravings of models for artists in general and goldsmiths in particular, after Léonard Thiry or Rosso Forentino, without lettering apart from a copyright line (Cum privilegio Regis) along the bottom of each print, ca 1549-1557
Table ornament and container (RD 175) (142 x 180 mm platemark)
Two designs for ewers (RD 171) (142 x 182 mm platemark)
Eight prints, 140/143 x 180/182 mm, imposed in pairs facing each other on four sheets, folded to produce a quire of 8 leaves. Watermark: fragment in album folios 39 [image], 41: lily, surmounted by a quatrefoil, possibly a mark of Jean Nivelle; compare type Briquet 7083 (1546, [link]).
Although unsigned and undated, these engravings of objects for storing napkins and cutlery, saltcellars, candlesticks, covered cups, ewers, and a tureen, most probably were made in the atelier of Pierre Milan and René Boyvin, in the early 1550s, from earlier drawings by Léonard Thiry, or possibly Rosso Fiorentino. The series of unnumbered prints is conventionally described as nine plates; absent here is a design for a fountain (RD 179). A complete series described in two catalogues of the Berlin Ornamentstichsammlung (1894, no. 672 [link]; 1939, no. 1032) was lost 1939-1945.
♦ Album 34, design for a cutlery and napkin container, or nef (RD 175; British Museum, 1887,1010.14.5 [link])
♦ Album 35, two designs for saltcellars (RD 173; British Museum, 1887,1010.14.3 [link])
♦ Album 36, two designs for covered cups (RD 172; British Museum, 1887,1010.14.2 [link])
♦ Album 37, two designs for candlesticks (RD 177; British Museum, 1887,1010.14.7 [link])
♦ Album 38, two designs for containers for cutlery (RD 178; British Museum, 1887,1010.14.8 [link])
♦ Album 39, two designs for ewers (RD 171; British Museum, 1887,1010.14.1 [link])
♦ Album 40, two designs for braziers and three designs for trays (RD 174; British Museum 1887,1010.14.4 [link])
♦ Album 41, design for a tureen (RD 176; British Museum, 1887,1010.14.6 [link])
other impressions
Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet, RP-P-OB-8343 (-8350) (RD 179 absent) [link]
Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, S.II, 9648-9656 (complete, [link])
London, Victoria & Albert Museum, Prints & Drawings, E.1022(-1029)-1908 (RD 179 absent)
New York, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 1921-6-470-1 (-9) (complete, [link])
Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, collections Jacques Doucet, 4 RES 59 (complete, digitised, [link]) (ex Foulc sale, Paris 3-6 June 1914, lot 71 [link])
Paris, Louvre, Département des arts graphiques, 4008-4012 (RD 177, 172, 177, 178, 179 only)
Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, KoB DelaG Ornam. (RD 175, 176, 179 absent)
Vienna, MAK, Kl 768 1-4; KL 1971-1972; KL 582-3; Kl 1012 (RD 177 absent)
references
A.P.F. Robert-Dumesnil, Le Peintre-Graveur Français, Tome huitième (Paris 1850), VIII, pp.74-76 nos. 171-179 [link]
Henri Hymans, Catalogue des estampes d’ornement faisant partie des collections de la Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique (Brussels 1907), pp.240, 241, 246 [link; link; link]
André Linzeler & Jean Adhémar, Inventaire du fonds français: graveurs du seizième siècle (Paris 1932-1938), I, pp.200-202 nos. 1-9 [link]
Isak Collijn, Katalog der Ornamentstichsammlung des Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie in der Kgl. Bibliothek zu Stockholm (Stockholm & Uppsala 1933), no. 31
Jacques Levron, René Boyvin, graveur angevin du XVIe siècle, avec le catalogue de son œuvre (Angers 1941), p.80 nos. 287-294 & Pls. XII-XIV
Henri Zerner, in L’École de Fontainebleau (Paris 1972), no. 438 (RD 175 only)
Ornamentprenten in het Rijksprentenkabinet (Amsterdam 1988), no. 632
Peter Fuhring, in The French Renaissance in prints from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Los Angeles 1994), nos. 80 (RD 175), 81 (RD 176)
42-46
Mathias Zündt (?): Five etchings of models for objects in metalwork (from a series of 31, entitled: Insigne ac planê novum opus cratero graphicum … Ein new Kunstbuch darjnnen kunstreiche contra fect und bildnus vom allerley Trinckgeschirrn, Credenzen und Becherm), published at Nuremberg, 1551
Design for a double bowl (150 190 mm platemark)
Designs for a tazza and spice bowl (145 x 233 mm platemark)
Five prints (their dimensions below). Bound in on their own paper. Watermark: illegible mark in last print of the group.
These etched models of dishes are from a series of thirty (plus frontispiece) published anonymously at Nuremberg in 1551. They were credited to a Master of 1551, or Master of the Kraterographie, until Franz Ritter in 1894 identified him as Mathias Zündt. Zündt served an apprenticeship in Wenzel Jamnitzer’s workshop, became a citizen of Nuremberg in 1556 (registered as a goldsmith), and in 1559 was sent by Jamnitzer to Prague to make a table fountain for Archduke Ferdinand. His substantial graphic oeuvre includes another suite of etched patterns for metalworkers and other artisans, twelve prints, with title dated 1553 (Andreas Andresen, Der deutsche Peintre-Graveur, Leipzig 1872, I, pp.1-46 nos. 59-70).
♦ Album 42, design for a double bowl decorated by large shells, 150 x 190 mm (British Museum, 1907,0515.19 [link])
♦ Album 43, designs for a tazza and spice bowl, 145 x 233 mm (British Museum 1907,0515.15 [link])
♦ Album 44, design for a tazza with strapwork ovals containing fruit in latticework, 75 x 175 mm (British Museum 1907,0515.14 [link])
♦ Album 45, design for a double bowl with festoons, 150 x 178 mm (British Museum 1907,0515.22 [link])
♦ Album 46, design for a double bowl with shells on one footplate, 125 x 174 mm (British Museum, 1907,0515.21 [link])
other impressions
Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet, (5 prints only)
Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstbibliothek, OS 903 aufg. (11 prints only? [link])
London, British Museum, 1907,0515.1 (title [link] and 29 of the 31 etchings from the series)
Paris, Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, collections Jacques Doucet, FOL EST 550 (complete; digitised, [link]) (ex Foulc sale, Paris 3-6 June 1914, lot 367 [link])
Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, KoB DelaG Ornam. (30 prints, [link])
references
G.K. Nagler, Die Monogrammisten (Munich 1858-1879), IV, pp.716-717 no. 2280
Désiré Guilmard, Les maîtres ornemanistes (Paris 1880-1881), pp.366-367 no. 35 (“Le Maître de 1551”)
Franz Ritter, “Der ‘Meister der Kraterographie’” in Mitteilungen des k. k. Österreichischen Museums für Kunst und Industrie 5 (1894), pp.72-74 [link]
Isak Collijn, Katalog der Ornamentstichsammlung des Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie in der Kgl. Bibliothek zu Stockholm (Stockholm & Uppsala 1933), no. 137 (complete; census of other impressions)
Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Nuremberg, a Renaissance City, 1500-1618 (Austin, TX 1983), nos. 183-184
Carsten-Peter Warncke, Die ornamentale Groteske in Deutschland (Berlin 1979), II, p.61 nos. 383-390 (7 prints)
47-50
Anonymous etcher: Four etchings of architecture and a reliquary, ca 1550-1560
Four prints (their dimensions below). Bound in on their own paper. Watermark: unicorn, in album folios 47-48, 50 [image] (see below); no mark observed in album folio 49.
Once attributed to Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, these four prints are removed from his oeuvre by the current specialist, Peter Fuhring. While the unicorn watermark seen in album folios 47-48, 50, resembles marks that Fuhring observed in prints executed by Du Cerceau in Orléans [image],1 this type of mark was widely diffused, and does not suggest where these etchings were printed (compare Briquet 10165, as Maastricht 1587 [link]). The prints could be French or Netherlandish. Fuhring reports (private communication, 23 April 2024) “I have seen of no. 48 six other impressions, no. 47 only two, no. 49 five impressions and no. 50 eight impressions.”
♦ Album 47, allegedly a model for St. Peter’s, Rome, 135 x 190 mm
other impression
Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, 37.2.1 Geom. 2° (4-59) oben (119 x 192 mm [link])
references
Heinrich Geymüller, Les Du Cerceau; leur vie et leur oeuvre d’après de nouvelles recherches (Paris 1887), p.286 (“Première tentative d’une édition des temples … Un des modelés pour Saint-Pierre de Rome. 191 x 116 millim.” [link])
Christian von Heusinger, “Zwei Ornamentstichsammelbände in der Herzog August Bibliothek. 26.6 Geom. und 37.2.1 Geom. 2°” in Wolfenbütteler Notizen zur Buchgeschichte 28 (2003), pp.45-75 (p.69 no. 154a)
♦ Album 48, design for a palace façade in Italianate style, a tablet above the triumphal portal lettered: Qvondam fvit ingens Ilion, 133 x 175 mm
This print has uncertain relations with three others: a print of a triumphal arch with a tablet lettered “Qvondam fvit ingens Ilion 1534,” once attributed to Du Cerceau, now unascribed [link]; a large etching of a palace façade, published by Du Cerceau at Orléans, in 1551 [link]; and a print in the long series entitled Prospettive et antichità di Roma by the Roman engraver and print publisher Michele Lucchese (Crecchi), probably issued in the early 1560s.2 In addition to the three impressions cited above, Peter Fuhring locates one in Basel, Kupferstichkabinett, x.1480.74; and another Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, 5337, fol. 47 (The Renaissance of etching, op. cit., p.286). The impression described in two catalogues of the Berlin Ornamentstichsammlung (1894, no. 1111 [link]; 1939, no. 2346) was lost 1939-1945.
other impressions
Paris, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Les 1175, pl. 24 (“Pl.24-25 en double, vue perspective frontale du palais de Troie ‘Quondam fuit ingens Ilion’, version réduite d’une des Compositions d’architecture d’Androuet du Cerceau (CA4, expo. 2010)” [link])
Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, 37.2.1 Geom. 2° (4-59) unten (125 x 176 mm [link])
Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, 6.1 Geom. 2° (5-2) unten (121 x 175mm) [link]
literature
Peter Fuhring, in The Renaissance of etching (New York 2019), pp.211-212 Fig. 89 (this impression illustrated)
references
Heinrich Geymüller, Les Du Cerceau; leur vie et leur oeuvre d’après de nouvelles recherches (Paris 1887), p.287 (“Petite façade de palais de style italien. 123 x 172 millim.” [link])
Christian von Heusinger, “Einige Bemerkungen zur Editionsgeschichte des Triumphzugs Kaiser Karls V. und Papst Clemens VII. nach der Kaiserkrönung am 24. Februar 1530 in Bologna von Nicolas Hogenberg Mit einem Anhang: Der Holzschnittfries Von Robert Peril” in Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 43 (2001), pp.63-108 (p.86)
Christian von Heusinger, “Zwei Ornamentstichsammelbände in der Herzog August Bibliothek. 26.6 Geom. und 37.2.1 Geom. 2°” in Wolfenbütteler Notizen zur Buchgeschichte 28 (2003), pp.45-75 (p.69 no. 154b)
♦ Album 49, design lettered: Le Tenple [sic] De Paix A Romme, 130 x 160 mm. Coloured with wash
This print is related to one lettered “Ex Templo pacis, Ro” in Du Cerceau’s Quoniam apud veteres, a series of 35 etchings of temples, published at Orléans in 1550 [link]. Geymüller located an additional impression in the “Musée de Bâle” (Basel, Kupferstichkabinett).
other impressions
Paris, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Les 1175 (“Pl.30 ‘Le Tenple de la Paix a Romme’: attribution retirée à A. Du C. en 2010” [link])
Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, 37.2.1 Geom. 2° (4-61) oben (131 x 162 mm [link])
Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, 6.1 Geom. 2° (5-2) oben (123 x 157mm [link])
references
Désiré Guilmard, Les maîtres ornemanistes (Paris 1880-1881), p.14 (“Pièces diverses au trait … Une pièce. Temple de la Paix à Rome, 0m, 16 sur 0m, 125” [link])
Heinrich Geymüller, Les Du Cerceau; leur vie et leur oeuvre d’après de nouvelles recherches (Paris 1887), p.286 (“Première tentative d’une édition des temples. Le Temple de la Paix, a Rome. 122 x 155 millim.” [link])
Christian von Heusinger, “Zwei Ornamentstichsammelbände in der Herzog August Bibliothek. 26.6 Geom. und 37.2.1 Geom. 2°” in Wolfenbütteler Notizen zur Buchgeschichte 28 (2003), pp.45-75 (p.69 no. 156a)
♦ Album 50, design for an architectonic tabernacle in Gothic style, 115 x 165 mm.
An impression described in two catalogues of the Berlin Ornamentstichsammlung (1894, no. 672 [link]; 1939, no. 1032) was lost 1939-1945.
other impressions
Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, collections Jacques Doucet, FOL RES 65, f. 16 [link] (ex Foulc sale, Paris, 3-6 June 1914, lot 75 no. 10a [link])
Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, 37.2.1 Geom. 2° (4-61) unten (117 x 165 mm [link])
Unlocated: Hippolyte-Alexandre-Gabriel-Walter Destailleur (sale, Paris, 20-31 May 1895, lot 256 among others); Vadim Cotlenko, proprietor of La Sirène, Paris ([stock catalogue] Ornaments: architecture, Paris 1991, item 47, 115 x 147 mm, watermark near Briquet 10959)
reference
Heinrich Geymüller, Les Du Cerceau; leur vie et leur oeuvre d’après de nouvelles recherches (Paris 1887), p.291
Christian von Heusinger, “Zwei Ornamentstichsammelbände in der Herzog August Bibliothek. 26.6 Geom. und 37.2.1 Geom. 2°” in Wolfenbütteler Notizen zur Buchgeschichte 28 (2003), pp.45-75 (p.69 no. 156b)
1. Peter Fuhring, in Jacques Androuet du Cerceau: ‘un des plus grands architectes que se soient jamais trouvés en France’ (Paris 2010), p.45 Fig. 41c.
2. Fuhring, op. cit. 2010, pp.98, 313 no. CA4 & Fig. 4.