- New
The Flood
| Reference: | S30478 |
| Author | Andrea ANDREANI |
| Year: | 1590 ca. |
| Measures: | 695 x 455 mm |
€10,500.00
- New
| Reference: | S30478 |
| Author | Andrea ANDREANI |
| Year: | 1590 ca. |
| Measures: | 695 x 455 mm |
€10,500.00
Description
Woodcut, signed with Andreani’s monogram in the lower left. After Nicolò Boldrini.
A fine impression, printed from two blocks on 2 sheets of contemporary laid paper, including the borderline or with thin margins, very good conditions.
The composition reproduces, in reverse, a woodcut of almost same size, which was originally attributed to Titian, but Mariette already doubted this attribution.
The scene depicted is the deluge described in Genesi. Couples and nude figures cling to a narrow tongue of land in the foreground while across the water tiny figures clamber up a distant shore to try to reach the top of a pyramid standing before other ancient ruins. Throughout the composition many of the distraught and frighlened turn to glance or gesture towards tha ark floating on the water which will eventually inundate the entire setting. The rising water has already claimed a number of victims, including a dog and an horse, and it stretches upward on a diagonal to wide expanse near the horizon.
The variety of stylistic and iconographic elements of this composition seems to exclude Titian as possible author, Nothern influences are much more apparent: stylistic elements from the Danubian school, motifs from Flemish tradition of “world landscapes” and the antique in the style of Etienne Duperac and Leonard Thiry combined.
The Andreani copies undoubtedly contributed to the basic categorization of the woodcut was Italian, yet the problematic nature of its style was conceded when it was included in the 1976/77 catalogue Tiziano e la silografia veneziana del Cinquecento, by D. Rosand and M. Muraro. They allude to the print’s northern aspects: it evokes “a different world, that of Durer” and it conveys the style of the drawn model and was cut with an exactitude which “would seem to preclude an attribution to Boldrini”, but don’t suggest any other names.
David Landau (1983) convincingly suggested that the composition reflects Scorel’s later style after his two years stay in Rome. The clear influence of Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina, which he probably saw during his travel from Rome to the Netherlands via Florence, also suggests a later date.
Molly Faries also attributes the work to Van Scorel, emphasizing many correspondences between this woodcut and two his paintings: Baptism, and Tobias and the Angel, executed during or just after Scorel’s stay in Venice.
A great example of this very rare work.
Bibliografia
Le Blanc, 2; Mariette, V, 302; Muraro e Rosand, Tiziano e la silografia veneziana del cinquecento, n. 86 e n. 87; Passavant, VI, pag. 222, n. 2; Heinecken, 1; M.Faries, “A woodcut of the Flood re-attributed to Jan van Scorel”, Oud Holland, 97 1983, pp. 5-12.
Andrea ANDREANI (Mantova 1546 – 1623)
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Italian woodcutter and printer. He was the only printmaker to produce a significant number of chiaroscuro woodcuts in Italy in the second half of the 16th century; he also reprinted chiaroscuro woodblocks originally cut 60 or 70 years earlier. He made at least 35 prints in both black and white and colour (many multiple-sheet), using a sophisticated style of cutting characterized by thin, closed contours. Based in Florence in 1584–5 and from 1586 in Siena, by 1590 he was also finding work in his native Mantua, where he is documented as establishing a workshop. He reproduced the designs of artists in diverse media with great fidelity: for example he made several prints (1586–90) after Domenico Beccafumi’s intarsia pavement designs in Siena Cathedral, three prints (1584) from different angles of Giambologna’s marble sculpture of the Rape of the Sabines (Florence, Loggia Lanzi), as well as of the bas-relief on the base of the same group and of Giambologna’s relief of Christ before Pilate (Florence, SS Annunziata), both in 1585; in the same year he also made prints after paintings and wash drawings by Jacopo Ligozzi and in 1591–2 others after Alessandro Casolani (1552–1608). His admiration for the woodcuts of Titian’s workshop is evident in his copies of the Triumph of Faith (his only work published in Rome, c. 1600) and Pharaoh Crossing the Red Sea (Siena, 1589) and in his practice of making very large prints composed of many joined sheets. Usually he used four overlapping chiaroscuro blocks per sheet; his most ambitious projects could call for 40 to 52 blocks each, as in the Sacrifice of Isaac (1586) after Beccafumi’s pavement, the Deposition (1595) after Casolani’s painting in S Quirico, Siena, and the Triumph of Caesar (1598–9) based on drawings by Bernardo Malpizzi after Andrea Mantegna’s cartoons (London, Hampton Court, Royal Col.). The fact that Andreani dedicated prints to so many different people, as the inscriptions on his prints show, suggests he had difficulty in finding patrons, though he briefly enjoyed assistance from the Gonzagas. This scarcity of patronage doubtless led to his reprinting, and, where wear or damage required, recutting earlier blocks, probably acquired from Niccolò Vicentino.
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Andrea ANDREANI (Mantova 1546 – 1623)
|
Italian woodcutter and printer. He was the only printmaker to produce a significant number of chiaroscuro woodcuts in Italy in the second half of the 16th century; he also reprinted chiaroscuro woodblocks originally cut 60 or 70 years earlier. He made at least 35 prints in both black and white and colour (many multiple-sheet), using a sophisticated style of cutting characterized by thin, closed contours. Based in Florence in 1584–5 and from 1586 in Siena, by 1590 he was also finding work in his native Mantua, where he is documented as establishing a workshop. He reproduced the designs of artists in diverse media with great fidelity: for example he made several prints (1586–90) after Domenico Beccafumi’s intarsia pavement designs in Siena Cathedral, three prints (1584) from different angles of Giambologna’s marble sculpture of the Rape of the Sabines (Florence, Loggia Lanzi), as well as of the bas-relief on the base of the same group and of Giambologna’s relief of Christ before Pilate (Florence, SS Annunziata), both in 1585; in the same year he also made prints after paintings and wash drawings by Jacopo Ligozzi and in 1591–2 others after Alessandro Casolani (1552–1608). His admiration for the woodcuts of Titian’s workshop is evident in his copies of the Triumph of Faith (his only work published in Rome, c. 1600) and Pharaoh Crossing the Red Sea (Siena, 1589) and in his practice of making very large prints composed of many joined sheets. Usually he used four overlapping chiaroscuro blocks per sheet; his most ambitious projects could call for 40 to 52 blocks each, as in the Sacrifice of Isaac (1586) after Beccafumi’s pavement, the Deposition (1595) after Casolani’s painting in S Quirico, Siena, and the Triumph of Caesar (1598–9) based on drawings by Bernardo Malpizzi after Andrea Mantegna’s cartoons (London, Hampton Court, Royal Col.). The fact that Andreani dedicated prints to so many different people, as the inscriptions on his prints show, suggests he had difficulty in finding patrons, though he briefly enjoyed assistance from the Gonzagas. This scarcity of patronage doubtless led to his reprinting, and, where wear or damage required, recutting earlier blocks, probably acquired from Niccolò Vicentino.
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