Carolus II Hispaniarium Rex Catholicus

Portrait of Charles II of Spain, signed by Nicolò Billy "the elder". The work belongs to a very rare series of engravings of famous people, probably never published as a collection.

It is not known how many engravings compose the collection; certainly, far more than the 8 plates -among other things, erroneously attributed to Nicolò Billy "the younger" - in the catalog of the "Duccio di Buoninsegna" Art Institute in Siena, which apparently own the largest collection of these beautiful portraits. Only one of the portraits is among the 11 in our possession. Therefore, the number of known plates rises, at the very least, to 18.

Nicolò or Nicola Billy “the elder” was an engraver, publisher and print dealer, occasionally also a draughtsman. Of French origin, related to Giacomo (Jacques Belly) and Vincenzo Billy, who were related to him in activity, he was active in Rome from the late seventeenth Century to the first half of the eighteenth Century. Apparently the first of the dynasty; unclear repertoires as much on the genre and chronological extremes of his activity as on the relations that bound him to his sons Antonio and Nicola. As an "engraver and merchant of prints," he subscribed near the “Orologgio della Chiesa Nuova”, “in San Salvatore di Lavoro” and “vicino a Pasquino”. As an engraver he worked for the most skilled Roman print dealers, from Giovanni Marco Paluzzi to Vincenzo Billy “alla Chiesa Nuova”, from Komarek to many members of the De Rossi Family “alla Pace”: vast was his engraving production, sometimes ignored by the repertories or sometimes (except for the generic assignments of Gori Gandellini, 1771, which gives him as collaborator his son Antonio) confused with that of his son Nicola, also because of the identity of signature.

The more artisanal than artistic character, the uneven rendering, the engraving with often crude and hasty strokes, may attribute a group of prints to Billy: religious subjects and portraits in particular. As a publisher he reprinted many of Pietro Testa's works.

Etching and engraving, 1685 circa, signed in plate at the bottom. Magnificent proof, rich in tone, impressed on contemporary laid paper, with margins, in perfect condition.

Very rare.

Bibliografia

Fabia Borroni, BILLY, Nicola, il Vecchio in “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani” - Volume 10 (1968); Ch. Le Blanc, Manuel de l'amateur d'estampes, I, Paris 1854, p. 340, con un elenco di 47 pezzi ascrivibili ai due Nicola Billy.