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| Agostino Carracci after Orazio Samacchini Allegory of Psalm 89 with figures of Misericordia, Truth, Justice, and Peace 1579 engraving after drawing British Museum |
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| Agostino Carracci after Orazio Samacchini Presentation in the Temple ca. 1579-81 engraving after drawing British Museum |
"The prints of the Carracci have a different kind of context from those of the other artists we have been looking at. This is because Agostino became in effect a professional engraver, for whom printmaking was at least as important as his painting. Bellori's view was that this occurred as a response to the conditions of patronage in Bologna and to the fact that he could not rely only on commissions for paintings as a source of income. Perhaps as a result of these uncertainties, Annibale had been trained in engraving by his brother in the early 1580s."
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| Agostino Carracci after Francesco Francia St Sebastian 1580 engraving after lost painting British Museum |
"There are certain alterations to a painted image that seem to be almost standard in Agostino's approach. One of these is a reduction in the depth of shadows in order to reveal the complete forms of the figures, even where parts are completely obscured in the original. Charles Dempsey commented on the 'greater anatomical definition' with which he renders the figures. It is also noticeable that he tends to push the figures back slightly from the front plane, creating a more or less shallow foreground. And closely related to this is a tendency to relax the tension in the relationship between the figures and the sides of the frame, often by introducing a narrow strip of space between the figures and the edge. . . . Agostino presumably calculated that by making these changes he could produce what he felt would be a satisfactory result in the graphic medium."
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| Agostino Carracci after Cornelis Cort St Roch 1580 engraving after engraving British Museum |
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| Agostino Carracci after Raffaellino da Reggio Tobias and the Angel 1581 engraving after drawing British Museum |
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| Agostino Carracci after Federico Barocci Madonna and Child in clouds 1582 engraving after etching British Museum |
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| Agostino Carracci after Giovanni de' Vecchi The Cordons of St Francis for the Confraternity of the Cordons of St Francis 1586 engraving after drawing British Museum |
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| Agostino Carracci after Titian Self-portrait 1587 engraving after painting British Museum |
"One problem that printmakers faced when transferring designs was that of the reversal of the image. The transfer of a drawing on to the plate using most of the methods so far described resulted in the printed image being reversed left to right. Agostino Carracci seems to have been especially scrupulous in ensuring that his prints came out the same way round as the models that he used. But to a remarkable number of printmakers it does not seem to have been a matter of great concern. The fact was often just accepted, and it is not always clear why."
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| Agostino Carracci after Jacopo Ligozzi Madonna and Child on crescent moon 1589 engraving after painting British Museum |
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| Agostino Carracci after Lodovico Carracci St Francis receiving the Stigmata 1586 engraving after painting British Museum |
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| Agostino Carracci after Lodovico Carracci Coat of Arms of Cardinal Cinzio Aldobrandini 1593-94 engraving after drawing British Museum |
"Seated allegorical figures of Prudence and Justice flank the coat of arms of Cardinal Cinzio Aldobrandini (1551-1610). This is an example of a coat of arms designed to form part of a thesis broadside. Thesis prints first emerged in the context of Jesuit teaching establishments and subsequently spread to the universities. In the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna there is an example of this engraving printed in the context for which it was intended. It is accompanied by a letterpress list of the thirty theses or 'conclusions' that were to be publicly defended by Domenico Tranquillo at the 12th hour on 29 April 1594 in the Collegio Montalto at Bologna. It carries a dedication to Tranquillo's sponsor, Cardinal Cinzio Aldobrandini. . . . The inventiveness of the cartouche is intriguingly subversive with its female tailed monsters, their abdomens treated as open-mouthed faces. Louise Rice has recently drawn attention to the fact that the Jesuits tried to control what they came to see as the inappropriateness of many thesis prints made for students in their colleges. What had begun as a simple coat of arms had, by the 1590s, become something much more elaborate. Great sums of money were being spent on them to ensure fine workmanship, visual inventiveness and lavish production. In 1603 there was an attempt at regulation to reduce the expenditure, including the instruction that nude figures of either men or women were not to be used. In the years 1590-95 Agostino engraved several of these coats of arms. They no doubt brought in a good income."
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| Agostino Carracci after Francesco Vanni St Francis consoled by the musical angel 1595 engraving after etching British Museum |
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| Agostino Carracci after Francesco Vanni St Jerome ca. 1595 engraving after etching British Museum |
"This is an example [above] of the rare first state of the print. As DeGrazia argued, the style of the engraving, which shows the influence of Hendrik Goltzius (1558-1617), would support a dating around 1595 or a little later. It is at the time that Agostino can be shown to have altered his approach in order to approximate the virtuoso effects of the great Netherlandish engraver. The way St. Jerome is shown, half-length and leaning toward us with a distant view opening behind, is very like the compositions of some of Goltzius' Apostles."
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| Agostino Carracci after Hendrik Goltzius Venus with sleeping Cupid "Without Bacchus and Ceres, Venus grows cold" 1599 engraving after engraving British Museum |
– quoted texts by Michael Bury from The Print in Italy, 1550-1620 (British Museum Press, 2001)