Friday, September 30, 2016

Views of Roman Architecture and Ruins, 16th century

Hieronymus Cock
Roman Ruin
1562
etching, engraving
British Museum

Hieronymus Cock
Roman Ruins
1551
etching
British Museum

Making pictures of what remained above-ground from the Roman past was not really a separate task from inventing pictures of what might have survived but hadn't. Both activities were full-time jobs for many generations of artistic Italians (and artistic foreigners) in the new Rome that dominated Europe aesthetically rather than politically during the 16th and 17th centuries.

Giovanni Battista de' Cavalieri
Columns and entablature from Temple of Venus Genetrix
1569
engraving
British Museum

Giovanni Battista de' Cavalieri
Temple of Vesta
1569
engraving
British Museum

Giovanni Battista de' Cavalieri
Pantheon cut-away
1569
engraving
British Museum

Antoine Lafréry
Pantheon with Sculpted Lions
1549
engraving
British Museum

Antoine Lafréry
Antonine Column and Vatican Obelisk
1550s
engraving
British Museum

Antoine Lafréry
The Colosseum
ca. 1547-60
engraving
British Museum

Johann Wyssenbach
Design for a Triumphal Arch
1558
woodcut
British Museum

Johann Wyssenbach
Design for a Temple with Herms
1558
woodcut
British Museum

attributed to Agostino Veneziano
Arch of Constantine
early 16th century
engraving
British Museum

Antoine Lafréry
Reconstsructed view of the Arch of Constantine
ca. 1547-60
engraving
British Museum

Antoine Lafréry
Reconstructed view of the Arch of Septimus Severus
1547
engraving
British Museum

Antoine Lafréry
Reconstructed view of the Arch of Vespasian
1548
engraving
British Museum

Views of Roman Ruins by Hieronymus Cock, 16th century

Hieronymus Cock
Title page - Views of Roman Ruins
printed at Antwerp in 1551
etching, engraving
Rijksmuseum

Hieronymus Cock (1518-1570)  enterprising son of a family of Antwerp artists  traveled to Rome in 1546 and stayed two years, drawing and studying what he found there. The etchings he produced back at home appeared for sale in 1551. The study of his etchings demonstrates how much more there was to find of the ancient surviving topography of built Rome in the days of Hieronymus Cock than would remain to be found in later centuries. There is a complete set of these at the Rijksmuseum. In later decades the images were recut and reprinted several times, with the result that later versions are much more widely available, but also degraded in quality

Hieronymus Cock
Colosseum
1551
etching
Rijksmuseum

Hieronymus Cock
Colosseum
1550
etching
Rijksmuseum

Hieronymus Cock
Colosseum
1551
etching
Rijksmuseum

Hieronymus Cock
Colosseum
1551
etching
Rijksmuseum

Hieronymus Cock
Colosseum
1551
etching
Rijksmuseum

Hieronymus Cock
Colosseum
1551
etching
Rijksmuseum

Hieronymus Cock
Colosseum, with Palatine Hill in the distance
1551
etching
Rijksmuseum

Hieronymus Cock
Palatine Hill
1550
etching
Rijksmuseum

Hieronymus Cock
Septizonium and Colosseum
1551
etching
Rijksmuseum

Hieronymus Cock
Baths of Diocletian
1550
etching
Rijksmuseum

Hieronymus Cock
Baths of Caracalla
1551
etching
Rijksmuseum

Hieronymus Cock
Basilica of Constantine
1551
etching
Rijksmuseum

Hieronymus Cock
Forum Romanum
1551
etching
Rijksmuseum

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Figure Studies printed in Amsterdam by Jan Punt

Jan Punt
Statue of the Venus de'Medici from steeply below & steeply above
1777
etching, engraving
Rijksmuseum

The print above  depicting the Venus de' Medici twice  was supplied by Jan Punt (1711-1779) as an illustration to a book published in 1778. Antoine George Eckhardt's Description d'un graphometre universel explained the author's method for drawing "every sort of object in the most precise manner."

Jan Punt
Relative proportions from child to adult
1777
etching, engraving
Rijksmuseum

The series below was printed by Jan Punt after Jan de Wit's designs. The prints were bound as illustrations in the book de Wit published in 1747, Proportions du corps humain.

printed by Jan Punt after design by Jacob de Wit
Proportions of the Apollo Belvedere
1747
etching, engraving
Rijksmuseum

printed by Jan Punt after design by Jacob de Wit
Proportions of the Farnese Hercules
1747
etching, engraving
Rijksmuseum

printed by Jan Punt after design by Jacob de Wit
Proportions - Woman - Front
1747
etching, engraving
Rijksmuseum

printed by Jan Punt after design by Jacob de Wit
Proportions - Woman - Side
1747
etching, engraving
Rijksmuseum

printed by Jan Punt after design by Jacob de Wit
Proportions - Woman - Back
1747
etching,, engraving
Rijksmuseum

printed by Jan Punt after design by Jacob de Wit
Proportions - Women - Heads
1747
etching, engraving
Rijksmuseum

printed by Jan Punt after design by Jacob de Wit
Proportions - Child
1747
etching, engraving
Rijksmuseum

printed by Jan Punt after design by Jacob de Wit
Proportions - Man - Front
1747
etching, engraving
Rijksmuseum

printed by Jan Punt after design by Jacob de Wit
Proportions - Man - Side
1747
etching, engraving
Rijksmuseum

printed by Jan Punt after design by Jacob de Wit
Proportions - Man - Back
1747
etching, engraving
Rijksmuseum

printed by Jan Punt after design by Jacob de Wit
Proportions - Men - Heads
1747
etching, engraving
Rijksmuseum

Jan Punt  engraver, printer and publisher  was also an actor. Of this activity he was evidently very proud. Below, this multi-talented man drew the design, cut the plate, printed and published it  and so commemorated his own performance as Achilles before an Amsterdam audience.

Jan Punt
Jan Punt in stage-role of Achilles
1770
etching, engraving
Rijksmuseum

Hieronymus Cock of Antwerp and Jan Punt of Amsterdam

printed and published by Hieronymus Cock
from a design attributed to Frans Huys
after Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Dutch Hulk
ca. 1565
engraving
British Museum

printed and published by Hieronymus Cock
after a painting by Giorgio Vasari
Six modern Italian authors
Cavalcanti, Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Poliziano, Ficino
ca. 1548-70
engraving
British Museum

published by Hieronymus Cock
engraved by Pieter van der Heyden
based on a fresco by Andrea del Sarto
Zachariah and the Archangel Gabriel
1551
engraving
British Museum

published by Hieronymus Cock
engraved by Cornelis Cort
after a design by Frans Floris
The Virtues - Intelligentia
1560
engraving
British Museum

published by Hieronymus Cock
engraved by Cornelis Cort
after a design by Frans Floris
The Virtues - Memoria
1560
engraving
British Museum

published by Hieronymus Cock
engraved by Cornelis Cort
after a design by Frans Floris
The Virtues - Perseverantia
1560
engraving
British Museum

published by Hieronymus Cock
engraved by Pieter van der Heyden
after Raphael
Sacrifice of Isaac
1552
engraving
Rijksmuseum

printed and published by Jan Punt
after George van der Mijn
Handbill for child dancers Carolina and Charlotta
1759
etching
British Museum

published by Johannes Smit
etched by Jan Punt
after Paulus van Liender
Scene from The Rough Neighborhood at the Amsterdam Theater
ca. 1738
etching
British Museum

printed and published by Jan Punt
after Blaise Nicolas Lesueur
after Titian
Danaë and the shower of gold
ca. 1747-60
etching, engraving
British Museum

Jan Punt
Crowned Coat-of-Arms of the Landgrave of Thuringia
1742
engraving
British Museum

Jan Punt
Cartouche with Bust of Minerva
1740
etching, engraving
Rijksmuseum

Jan Punt
Vignette 
Interior with naked figures seated on chairs
1749
engraving
British Museum

André Chastel explains the point of view reflected from afar in Jan Punt's odd little engraving above  "For half a century, French taste went once again to extremes of pleasant frivolity, as though taking a break between periods of severe intellectualism; it was an era of gracefulness between the era of grandeur and that of eloquence."  

Jan Punt
Man opening the door to Death
1758
etching, engraving
Rijksmuseum