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 |