Monday, April 10, 2017

17th-century Portrait-Prints of Notable Personages

Anonymous Roman printmaker
Portrait of Pope Urban VIII Barberini
with dedication by Vincenzo Giustiniani

engraving
ca. 1623
British Museum

"The evolving development of absolute papal power was personified by Urban VIII Barberini (reg. 1623-44).  On one occasion, for example, the Roman city government requested instructions from the pope concerning the festivities that were to be held  at the urging of the Imperial Ambassador  in honor of the election of Ferdinand III, king of Bohemia and Hungary, as King of the Romans (i.e., the official heir of his father, the Holy Roman Emperor).  According to Gigli, Urban was said to have replied crisply, "in Rome he was the King of the Romans, and therefore nothing was to be done about the matter."  The Roman pontiff was now seated on the throne of the Caesars."

 Maria Giulia Barberini, in Life and the Arts in the Baroque Palaces of Rome, edited by Stefanie Walker and Frederick Hammond (Yale University Press, 1999)

Claude Mellan
Portrait of Vincenzo Giustiniani
(frontispiece to the printed catalog
 of his collection of ancient sculpture)

engraving
1631
British Museum

Claude Mellan
Portrait of Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc
(scholarly colleague of Cassiano dal Pozzo)

engraving
1637
British Museum

Ottavio Leoni
Portrait of Giambattista Marino
(Neapolitan Mannerist poet
and early patron of Nicolas Poussin)

engraving
1624
British Museum

Johann Friedrich Greuter after Simon Vouet
Portrait of Giambattista Marino
(Neapolitan Mannerist poet
and early patron of Nicolas Poussin)

engraving
ca. 1630-40
British Museum

Anonymous printmaker
Portrait of Annibale Carracci, painter of Bologna 
engraving
17th century
British Museum

Anonymous printmaker after Anthony van Dyck
Portrait of Flemish sculptor François Duquesnoy
etching & engraving for book illustration
17th century
British Museum

Claude Randon
Portrait of Flemish sculptor François Duquesnoy
engraving
ca. 1660-80
British Museum

Francesco Villamena
Portrait of English architect Inigo Jones
engraving
ca. 1615-20
British Museum

Claude Mellan
Portrait of Henrietta of England
youngest daughter of Charles I
engraving
ca. 1655-61
British Museum

Claude Mellan
Minerva guiding the infant Louis XIV
engraving
ca. 1640
British Museum

Claude Mellan
Allegory of Fame bearing shield of Louis XIV
engraving
after 1643
British Museum

Francesco Villamena after Cavaliere d'Arpino
Maiestas figure
painted for the funeral of Pope Sixtus V

engraving
ca. 1590-1630
British Museum

Claude Mellan
Letter O with Open Eye
engraving
ca. 1639-43
British Museum