Wednesday, May 15, 2019

Anton Maria Zanetti (1680-1767) - Venice

Anton Maria Zanetti after Parmigianino
Man in cloak holding a dish
1723
chiaroscuro woodcut
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anton Maria Zanetti after Parmigianino
Woman balancing an urn
1724
chiaroscuro woodcut
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anton Maria Zanetti after Parmigianino
Woman balancing an urn
1724
chiaroscuro woodcut
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anton Maria Zanetti after Parmigianino
Apollo and Marsyas
1724
chiaroscuro woodcut
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anton Maria Zanetti after Parmigianino
Temple of Jupiter
1724
chiaroscuro woodcut
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anton Maria Zanetti after Parmigianino
Putto
1722
chiaroscuro woodcut
Royal Collection, Great Britain

"The man who provided the crucial impetus for Venetian printmaking activity in its greatest period, roughly the second quarter of the eighteenth century, was Anton Maria Zanetti.  Connoisseur, extraordinary collector of prints and drawings and also of gems, and a printmaker himself, Zanetti turned twenty as the eighteenth century began.  During his long life (he died in 1767) he knew all the major artists of his time, and his home was a gathering place for visiting connoisseurs.  Zanetti, interested in art all his life, trained with Nicolas Bambini, Sebastiano Ricci, and Antonio Balestra.  His meeting in 1716 with the French collector Pierre Crozat and in 1718 with the eminent connoisseur Pierre-Jean Mariette led to a visit to Paris in 1720, and he corresponded with Mariette for the rest of his life.  Mariette, in an affectionate account in his Abecedario, called Zanetti "le plus ardent amateur que j'ai jamais connu" (the most passionate collector I have known).  . . .  After Paris, Zanetti visited London, where he acquired the objects of which he was most proud, 130 Parmigianino drawings from the collection of Lord Arundel [Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, 1586-1646].  Back in Venice, Zanetti began a series of prints copying these drawings.  Some were etchings, but the prints for which he is best known are the chiaroscuro woodcuts.  Wanting to revive the great art of chiaroscuro as practiced in the sixteenth century, especially by Ugo da Carpi, who had worked directly with Parmigianino, Zanetti created a process similar to the sixteenth-century one, and over a period of about twenty years he produced more than eighty chiaroscuros."

– Suzanne Boorsch, Venetian Prints and Books in the Age of Tiepolo (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997)

(Zanetti deserves particular notice for pulling off a truly unusual feat – carrying an important group of Italian Renaissance drawings back to Italy from one of the richer northern European countries that had for many years freely plundered the finest Italian art.)

Anton Maria Zanetti after Parmigianino
Standing Woman
1724
chiaroscuro woodcut
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anton Maria Zanetti after Parmigianino
Seated Woman
1726
chiaroscuro woodcut
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anton Maria Zanetti after Parmigianino
Draped Youth
1723
chiaroscuro woodcut
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anton Maria Zanetti after Parmigianino
Aeneas and Anchises fleeing the burning of Troy
1723
chiaroscuro woodcut
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anton Maria Zanetti after Parmigianino
Six Disciples
1723
chiaroscuro woodcut
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anton Maria Zanetti after Parmigianino
St Andrew
1722
chiaroscuro woodcut
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anton Maria Zanetti after Parmigianino
St Andrew
1724
chiaroscuro woodcut
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anton Maria Zanetti after Parmigianino
St Philip
1721
chiaroscuro woodcut
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anton Maria Zanetti after Parmigianino
St Sebastian
1723
chiaroscuro woodcut
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anton Maria Zanetti after Parmigianino
Virgin and Child
1723
chiaroscuro woodcut
Royal Collection, Great Britain