Sunday, April 9, 2017

Noble Fragments from the Paper Museum

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Roman marble statue of draped woman
wash drawing
mid-17th century
British Museum

"Writing of his Paper Museum in a letter of 1654, Cassiano declared, "I have not spared expense in collecting together evidence, having caused young men well qualified in drawing to copy over a period of many years, continuing even to the present, all that is good that may be found amongst marbles and metals that might be capable of suggesting some noteworthy information about the Antique."  Cassiano did not possess the financial means to collect antiquities on a large scale himself, and this may have been one of the reasons why he decided to employ artists to make drawn copies for him of the remains of Roman civilization, from household objects to manuscripts, sculpture and mosaics.  These copies were then classified thematically in his Paper Museum, thus forming as complete a record as possible of ancient Roman religion, customs, dress, architecture, theatrical spectacles and so on."

 Nicholas Turner, from The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo, 1993 exhibition catalog from the British Museum

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Roman Forum - Temple of Castor & Pollux
copy of Uffizi drawing by Giovanni Antonio Dosio
before 1610
British Museum

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Statue of seated figure flanked by phalloi
wash drawing
mid-17th century
British Museum

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Bronze Statuette of Mars Ultor (head)
wash drawing
mid-17th century
British Museum

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Antique Capitals
wash drawing
ca. 1650
British Museum

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Putti before a statue of Venus 
etching by Giovanni Andrea Podestà, after Titian
dedicated to Cassiano dal Pozzo
1636
British Museum

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Triumph of Caesar with Elephants
engraving by follower of Andrea Mantegna
ca. 1470-1500
British Museum

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Roman Procession with Bulls for Sacrifice
etching by Michele Lucchese after Polidoro da Caravaggio
ca. 1540-50
British Museum

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Chapel Interior
Funeral of Filippo Giuseppe San Martino d'Angliè

etching
1667
British Museum

Funeral decoration of chapels and churches was a huge and profitable field of artistic endeavor throughout Europe in the seventeenth century. At the back of the small chapel above, the altar-like structure rising to the ceiling consists of five tiers. Paintings and statues are densely arranged on each level in a diminishing scale that echoes perspective techniques used to communicate depth in paintings with a similar system of diminishment. The statue at the peak supports an oval portrait of the deceased and stands beneath a suspended baldachino put in place for the occasion from which descends a canopy apparently made of dozens of yards of embroidered silk.

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Glass Coffer ornamented with Angel Musicians, Caryatids and Animals
containing the Skeleton of Saint Carlo Borromeo in Episcopal Robes

etching by Giovanni Paolo Bianchi
1638
British Museum

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Colonnade including statues of six bishops from one family in Brescia
engraving
17th century
Royal Collection, Windsor

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Sheet of sketches by Perino del Vaga
drawing
before 1547
British Museum

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Study for fountain with Adonis in niche
wash drawing
17th century
British Museum

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Chiefly motifs from the base of Trajan's Column in Rome
mid-17th-century
drawing
British Museum