Red Chalk – Italian Drawings – 1725-1750

Aureliano Milani
Landscape
before 1749
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Aureliano Milani
Distant Landscape with Tree in Foreground
before 1749
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Aureliano Milani
Hilly Landscape with Three Figures
before 1749
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Giambattista Tiepolo
Head of Satyr
ca. 1750
drawing
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Giambattista Tiepolo
Drapery Study, Man wearing a Cloak
ca. 1750
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Giambattista Tiepolo
Half-Length Study of Soldier with Sword
ca. 1750
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum

Anonymous Artist after Sebastiano Ricci
Family of Centaurs
ca. 1730-50
drawing
Kabinet Grafike, Zagreb, Croatia

Giuseppe Maria Crespi
St Paul
ca. 1725-30
drawing
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Giuseppe Maria Crespi
Christ crowned with Thorns
before 1747
drawing
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Pietro Longhi
Dignitary holding a Document
ca. 1730-40
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Francesco Solimena
Study of Right Arm
before 1747
drawing
private collection

Pompeo Batoni
Académie
ca. 1745
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Pompeo Batoni
Study for Hercules at the Crossroads
ca. 1740-42
drawing
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Pompeo Batoni
Studies of Bearded Man
ca. 1740-45
drawing
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Pompeo Batoni
Antique Sculpture, Draped Male Torso
ca. 1750
drawing
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Small Bronzes by Giambologna, Susini, Riccio (Vienna)

Giambologna
Bathing Venus
ca. 1585
bronze statuette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Giambologna
Allegory of Astronomy
ca. 1585
gilt-bronze statuette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Giambologna
Hercules and the Erymanthian Boar
ca. 1575-80
bronze statuette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Giambologna
Hercules and Antaeus
ca. 1578-80
bronze statuette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

from Cooper's Hill

   Here was that charter sealed, wherein the Crown
All marks of arbitrary power lays down:
Tyrant and slave, those names of hate and fear,
The happier style of king and subject bear,
Happy, when both to the same centre move,
When kings give liberty, and subjects love.
Therefore not long in force this charter stood;
Wanting that seal, it must be sealed in blood.
The subjects armed, the more their princes gave,
But this advantage took, the more to crave,
Till kings by giving, give themselves away,
And even that power that should deny, betray.
"Who gives constrained, but his own fear reviles,
Nor thanked, but scorned, nor are they gifts, but spoils."
And they, whom no denial can withstand,
Seem but to ask, while they indeed command.
Thus all to limit royalty conspire,
While each forgets to limit his desire,
Till kings like old Antaeus by their fall,
Being forced, their courage from despair recall.

– Sir John Denham (1642)

Giambologna
Mercury
ca. 1585
bronze statuette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Giambologna
Lion
(after the antique marble Medici Lions)
ca. 1590
bronze statuette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Antonio Susini after Giambologna
Two Figures from Abduction of Sabines group
ca. 1580
bronze statuette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Antonio Susini after Giambologna
Hercules battling the Centaur Eurytion
ca. 1600
bronze statuette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Antonio Susini
Centaur Nessus abducting Dejanira
ca. 1590
bronze statuette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Antonio Susini
Striding Horse
ca. 1590
bronze statuette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Riccio (Andrea Briosco)
Putto with a Goose
ca. 1515-20
bronze statuette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

workshop of Riccio (Andrea Briosco)
Seated Pan
ca. 1530
bronze statuette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Riccio (Andrea Briosco)
Satyr Drinking
ca. 1515-20
bronze statuette
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Riccio (Andrea Briosco)
Oil Lamp in the form of Donkey Head ridden by a Dwarf
ca. 1500-1520
bronze
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Baroque Printmakers

Charles Le Brun
Hours of the Day - Aurora (Dawn) - Satyr, Bacchante, and Child
1640
etching
British Museum

Charles Le Brun
Hours of the Day - Meridies (Mid-day) - Satyr, Bacchante,  and Child
1640
etching
British Museum

Charles Le Brun
Hours of the Day - Vesper (Evening) - Satyr holding child, Bacchante in background
1640
etching
British Museum

Charles Le Brun
Hours of the Day - Nox (Night) - Satyr, Child, and Bacchante sleeping
1640
etching
British Museum

Jan Harmensz Muller after Adriaen de Vries
Death of Cleopatra
ca. 1654-66
engraving
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jan Harmensz Muller after Adriaen de Vries
Prudentia
ca. 1654-66
engraving
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jan Harmensz Muller after Cornelis van Haarlem
Two Wrestlers
before 1628
engraving
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Frederick Bloemaert after Abraham Bloemaert
Hunters
before 1669
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Frederick Bloemaert after Abraham Bloemaert
Landscape
before 1669
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Frederick Bloemaert after Abraham Bloemaert
Landscape
before 1669
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Frederick Bloemaert after Abraham Bloemaert
Sea-coast
before 1669
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

François Chauveau
Head of old Satyr
ca. 1630-76
etching
British Museum

Hendrick Goudt after Adam Elsheimer
Salome receiving the head of St John the Baptist
before 1648
engraving
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

"Hendrik Goudt (1583-1648) was one of the most influential printmakers in 17th-century Holland.  His seven engravings after German painter Adam Elsheimer (1578-1610), with their dramatic chiaroscuro effects and dark tonalities, led the way for dark prints by such other artists as Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) and Jan van de Velde II (ca. 1593-1641).  . . .  He was the son of Arend Goudt, a member of the lesser nobility in The Hague.  Goudt went to Rome in 1604 and by 1607 is recorded as living in Elsheimer's house; by 1609 he was living in a house nearby.  According to the account written by Joachim von Sandrart (1606-1688), Goudt was Elsheimer's pupil; it is clear that Goudt's drawing style was based on Elsheimer's.  Sandrart also recorded that Goudt purchased many of Elsheimer's paintings.  Elsheimer suffered financial difficulties and probably was put in debtor's prison, where he may have contracted his fatal illness.  Goudt's role in this is unclear, but apparently they reconciled after Elsheimer's release and before his death in 1610.  While Italian records list Goudt as a painter, two of his engravings after Elsheimer were made in Rome, dated 1608 and 1610.  The remaining five engravings were made in 1612 and 1613, after Goudt returned to Holland to live in Utrecht.  He brought with him a number of Elsheimer's paintings.  He was accepted into the artist's Guild of St. Luke as an engraver and a nobleman.  He was apparently a man of means, and acquired valuable real estate in 1612.  . . . After about 1620 he suffered from mental illness and was declared incompetent in 1625.  Sandrart visited Goudt in Utrecht in 1625 and 1626 and found him feeble-minded; other contemporary documents record the same.  He died in 1648 in Utrecht."

– from curator's notes at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Goudt's relationship to the the far more famous Elsheimer sounds like a Henry James novel – wealthy young dilettante befriends improvident genius, whom he then exploits and destroys, but is later overtaken in his own turn by guilt (or nemesis) and driven mad.

Pieter Claesz Soutman after Adam Elsheimer
Martyrdom of St Lawrence
before 1657
engraving
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Grégoire Huret
Mars and Minerva with Time asleep and Fame flying aloft
ca. 1642-44
engraved title-page
British Museum

Alexander Voet after Jacob Jordaens
Old man with cat
ca. 1662-74
engraving
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

European Images of Ancient Non-human Beings

Bartholomeus Spranger
Cupid and Psyche
before 1611
drawing
British Museum

Jonas Umbach
Pan pursuing Syrinx through the reeds
before 1700
etching
British Museum

Balthasar Bernaerts after Jan Goeree
Apollo bestowing laurel wreath on bust of Horace
(title-page for Richard Bentley's edition of Horace)
1713
etching, engraving
British Museum

Arnold Houbraken
Priapus in a landscape
before 1719
engraving
British Museum

"Priapus, standing in a landscape, holding a knife in his right hand; has fruit and vegetables in his garment; on his head a corn-plant . . . from the second part of a series of figures depicting emblems and symbols."

– curator's notes from the British Museum

Domenico Cunego after Domenichino
Landscape with Apollo and Hyacinthus 
(after a fresco in the Loggia del Giardino of Palazzo Farnese, Rome)
1771
etching, engraving
British Museum

Salomon Gessner
Women approach Herm of Pan in a landscape
1787
watercolor, bodycolor
British Museum

"Salomon Gessner (1730-1788) was a Swiss writer who achieved international fame during his lifetime for idyllic poetry and prose based on the classics.  This sheet [directly above] is a fine example of his pastoral landscapes, which he drew in watercolor and bodycolor primarily during the last decade of his life.  The drawing was etched in 1805 by a German printmaker of the next generation, Carl Wilhelm Kolbe, whose evocative landscape prints [example directly below] have much in common with Gessner's pastoral works.  . . .  Most of Gessner's pastoral watercolors are in the Graphische Sammlung Kunsthaus Zürich."

– curator's notes from the British Museum

Carl Wilhelm Kolbe
Satyr carrying Nymph on his back in a landscape
ca. 1810-20
etching
British Museum

Bartolomeo Pinelli
Tearful Venus standing before Jupiter
(illustration for The Aeneid)
ca. 1811
etching
British Museum

Bartolomeo Pinelli
Venus emerging from a cloud of sacrificial smoke to prevent Aeneas from killing Helen
(illustration for The Aeneid)
ca. 1811
etching
British Museum

Bertel Thorvaldsen
Pan teaching pipes to child Satyr
1831
drawing
British Museum

"Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) - Danish Neoclassical sculptor; spent most of his working life in Rome, where he first arrived in 1797.  A museum, where he is also buried in the courtyard, is devoted to his work in Copenhagen."

– biographical note from the British Museum

François-Joseph Heim
Study for attendants at the Toilet of Venus, squared for transfer
before 1865
drawing
British Museum

Charles Conder
Pan and Nymphs in woodland setting
1904
colored chalk on green paper
British Museum

Herbert Cole
Vignette of Centaur with bow
before 1931
drawing
British Museum

"Herbert Cole (1867-1931) - Painter, draughtsman and illustrator working in London; illustrated volumes of poetry, literature and children's books for John Lane, J.M. Dent, and other publishers, 1890s-1920s; exhibited at the Royal Academy; taught at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts."

– biographical note from the British Museum

Cyril Goldie
Landscape composition with Centaur
before 1942
watercolor
British Museum

"Cyril Goldie (1872-1942) - Printmaker.  Based for some time in Liverpool.  Taught etching at the Central School of Arts and Crafts.  Exhibited at the New English Art Club and at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool."

– biographical note from the British Museum