Thursday, April 27, 2017

Conscientious Renderings by Pietro Santi Bartoli

Pietro Santi Bartoli
Goddess surrounded by standing figures
(copy after Roman mural)

ca. 1660-90
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Pietro Santi Bartoli
Winged female figure from Trajan's Column
(copy after Roman relief) 

ca. 1660-90
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Pietro Santi Bartoli - painter, engraver and etcher, born Villa Bartola, near Perugia, 1635, worked and died Rome, 1700. Prominent in antiquarian circles.  Bartoli transferred early in life to Rome, where he became a pupil of Pierre Lemaire, known as 'Le petit Lemaire' or 'Lemaire-Poussin' (c. 1512-88), and of Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665). After Poussin's death collaborated frequently with Bellori, until he died in 1696, making the drawings and plates of antiquarian objects that were accompanied by Bellori's texts. 

He married a daughter of G.F. Grimaldi (the engraver Farjat, qv, married another). Although he had trained as a painter, he specialised as a draughtsman, excelling as a copyist after the Antique.  In this latter capacity he joined the household of Cardinal Camillo Massimi: two volumes of drawings that he made while in this employment are preserved, one in the University Library, Glasgow, and the other in the College Library, Eton. 

Bartoli is best known as an engraver of antique subjects.  His several volumes of such prints, famous in their day and sometimes running into a number of different editions . . . most were issued with texts written by the famous antiquarian and connoisseur Giovan Pietro Bellori.

 curatorial notes from the British Museum

Pietro Santi Bartoli
Women holding casket, ointment jar, musical instrument
(copy after Roman mural)
ca. 1660-90
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Pietro Santi Bartoli
Adults with children
(copy after Roman mural)

ca. 1660-90
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Pietro Santi Bartoli
Maritime mythological scene
(copy after Roman mural)

ca. 1660-90
drawing
Royal Collection,  Windsor

Pietro Santi Bartoli
Copy after Roman mural ornament
ca. 1660-90
watercolor
Royal Collection, Windsor

Pietro Santi Bartoli
Copy after Roman ceiling decoration
ca. 1660-90
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Pietro Santi Bartoli
Venus surrounded by other deities
(copy after Roman tomb painting, with notes)

1689
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Pietro Santi Bartoli
Jupiter on Eagle
(copy after antique relief)

ca. 1655-70
etching
British Museum

Pietro Santi Bartoli
Four men with a pig on a ball
(copy after antique relief)

ca. 1655-70
engraving
British Museum

Pietro Santi Bartoli after Giulio Romano
Battle of Gods and Giants
(copy after fresco at Palazzo del Te, Mantua)
ca. 1680
etching
British Museum

Pietro Santi Bartoli after Giulio Romano
Giants crushed by boulders
(copy of fresco at Palazzo del Te, Mantua)

ca. 1680
etching
British Museum

Pietro Santi Bartoli after Giulio Romano
Copies of  frescoes at Palazzo del Te, Mantua
ca. 1680
etching (two prints on one plate)
British Museum

Pietro Santi Bartoli after Giulio Romano
St Gregory the Great
writing at the dictation of the Holy Spirit
(visible as a dove on his shoulder)

before 1677
engraving
British Museum

Pietro Santi Bartoli
Copy of antique figure of Fame
ca. 1650-1700
drawing
British Museum