“Noli me tangere”, c1650, after Luca Ciamberlano's engraving after Federico Barocci's painting

Unidentified engraver from the school of Luca Ciamberlano (fl.1599–1641)

“Noli me tangere” (Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene as a gardener after the Resurrection and requesting her not to touch him), c1650, in reverse after Luca Ciamberlano’s engraving after Federico Barocci’s (c1535–1612) painting, now preserved in Bywell Hall after is damage. The text lines that are lost below the image borderline advise that this engraving was published by Pierre Mariette (1634–1716) in Paris (see the description of the same print with the intact text at Gonnelli auctions: https://www.gonnelli.it/it/asta-0018/noli-me-tangere-da-federico-barocci-.asp). Note: my date of attribution for this print is based on understanding that Pierre Mariette (the publisher) was active at the inscribed address, “rue S. Jacques à l'Espérance”, in 1657.

Engraving on fine laid paper trimmed around the image borderline and backed with a support sheet.

Size: (sheet) 39.2 x 29.8 cm.

Condition: excellent impression—a lifetime impression based on the crisp lines showing no sign of wear to the printing plate—with closed tears and holes that are virtually invisible and laid onto a support of archival (millennium quality) washi paper. Beyond the tears and losses, the sheet is in a very good condition for its considerable age (i.e. there are no folds, abrasions, stains or foxing).

I am selling this large and visually arresting engraving—simply magnificent in my opinion—for the total cost of AU$400 (currently US$279.29/EUR248.62/GBP223.09 at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world (but not, of course, any import duties/taxes imposed by some countries).

If you are interested in purchasing this luminous print sparkling with tonal contrasts from the 1600s, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy. 

This print has been sold

Agostino Carracci’s and/or Luca Ciamberlano’s engraving, “Resurrecting Figure”, 1597–1629

Agostino Carracci (1557–1602) and/or Luca Ciamberlano (fl.1599–1641)

“Resurrecting Figure” (aka “Man’s Torso Seen from the Back, Leaning on His Two Arms” [TIB title]), 1597–1629, after a detail (in reverse) from Michelangelo’s (aka Michelangelo Buonarroti) (1475–1564), “Last Judgement” (Sistine Chapel, Vatican), and published by Pietro Stefanoni (c1557–1642) in Rome.

Note: The British Museum holds Michelangelo’s chalk study (1540) for the same figure and the BM curator's discussion about the study is interesting; see BM no. 1886,0513.5: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=716082&partId=1&searchText=1886,0513.5+(Wilde+63)&page=1

Engraving on fine laid paper trimmed on/within the plate mark and re-margined with a support sheet.

Size: (support-sheet) 34.3 x 27.3 cm; (sheet trimmed unevenly) 15.7 x 10.1 cm

TIB 30 (18). 70 (167) (Diane DeGrazia Bohlin (ed.) 1980, “The Illustrated Bartsch: Italian Masters of the Sixteen Century”, vol. 39, p. 363); Bartsch XVIII.167.70 (Adam Bartsch 1803, “Le Peintre graveur, vol. XVIII, Vienna)

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:

“A naked man leaning on his arms seen from behind, a resurrecting figure from Michelangelo's 'Last Judgement’”

(http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3029331&partId=1&searchText=After+Michelangelo+&page=3) see also the discussion of another copy of this print held by the BM: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1563532&partId=1&searchText=1874,0808.642&page=1

Condition: crisp impression trimmed within the platemark with the publisher’s initials removed and re-margined on a support sheet. The sheet is mottled in colour and the edges of the print have been restored to make the uneven trimming of the sheet less distracting, otherwise, there are no tears, holes, folds, abrasions or foxing.

I am selling this finely executed engraving from the Renaissance era—interestingly it was executed around sixty years after Michelangelo completed his fresco from which this study is a detail—for AU$170 (currently US$138.05/EUR111.06/GBP97.53 at the time of posting this listing). Postage for this print is extra and will be the actual/true cost of shipping.

If you are interested in acquiring this early and very rare study, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

Diane DeGrazia Bohlin (1980) in the TIB catalogue raisonné lists this print as executed by Agostino Carracci after Michelangelo whereas the British Museum proposes that Carracci may have been the intermediary draughtsman with Luca Ciamberlano (aka Lucas de Urbino) (fl.1599–­1641) as the true engraver. If this were an engraving by Ciamberlano then this would help to narrow the attribution of its dates of execution from what is currently 1597 to 1629 (proposed by the British Museum) to 1597 to 1614. The reason for this narrowing of dates is simply because this print was published by Pietro Stefanoni (c1557–1642) and after 1614 Ciamberlano published his own prints and so it is very likely to have been executed prior to 1614 (Ciamberlano’s dates as an active published are discussed in M Bury’s (2001), “The Print in Italy 1550–1625”, British Museum, London, p. 224).

From a personal standpoint I would not be surprised if the engraving were by Ciamberlano as the treatment of the locks of hair and the way that the musculature is revealed seems (to my eyes) to match very closely the stylistic attributes seen in the Ciamberlano engravings that I have posted earlier (http://www.printsandprinciples.com/2017/04/luca-ciamberlanos-engravings-after.html). Moreover, if one compares Agostino Carracci approach to rendering forms (see, for example my post about Agostino Carracci’s engraving, “The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine”: http://www.printsandprinciples.com/2017/02/agostino-carraccis-engraving-mystic.html) I do not see the same subtlety of understanding regarding underlying muscles and use of silhouette edges.

I fully appreciate that I may be alone in my views … 

Luca Ciamberlano’s engravings after Polifilo Giancarli, 1628

Luca Ciamberlano (aka Ludovico Ciamberlano; Lucas de Urbino) (fl.1599–1641)

Three ornamental panels, 1628, after Odoardo Fialetti (1573–1626/1627), after the designs by Polifilo Giancarli (fl.c.1620–57), published by Giuseppe de' Rossi (1560–1639) in a series of twelve friezes (cited by Gori) of foliage with figures and monsters, “Des rinceaux dórnements et des frises …”. (See the title page for this set of friezes at the V & A:   http://m.vam.ac.uk/collections/item/O111153/title-page-for-a-set-print-giancarli-polifilo/)

(Note: Odoardo Fialetti’s set of prints, “Verscheyden Aerdige Morissen van Polifilo Zancarli geordineert”, are reduced in size, in reverse and published by Claes Jansz. Visscher (1587– 1652) in 1636; see, for example, the Fialetti’s copy of the lower panel held by the British Museum: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1449920&partId=1&searchText=Giancarli&page=1)

Upper panel:

“Ornamental Frieze with Winged Nudes, Putti, and Foliage”, 1628, engraving with light plate tone on fine laid paper with margins lined upon conservator’s support sheet. Size: (sheet) 20.4 x 53.5 cm; (plate) 11.7 x 45.8 cm. TIB 44 (20). 3–[6] (56) (Walter L Strauss [Ed.] 1983, “The Illustrated Bartsch”, vol. 44, p. 195)

Middle panel:

“Ornamental Frieze with Old Female Satyr on a Dolphin, and Foliage”, 1628, engraving with light plate tone on fine laid paper with margins lined upon conservator’s support sheet. Size: (sheet) 20.4 x 53.6 cm; (plate) 11.6 x 45.2 cm. TIB 44 (20). 3–[8] (56) (Walter L Strauss [Ed.] 1983, “The Illustrated Bartsch”, vol. 44, p. 197)

Lower panel:

“Ornamental Frieze with Fantastic Creatures and Foliage”, 1628, engraving with light plate tone on fine laid paper with margins lined upon conservator’s support sheet. Size: (sheet) 20.5 x 54 cm; (plate) 12.2 x 44.6 cm. TIB 44 (20). 3–[9] (56) (Walter L Strauss [Ed.] 1983, “The Illustrated Bartsch”, vol. 44, p. 198)

Condition: crisp, excellent impressions with generous margins in good condition for the age of the prints, laid onto a conservator’s support sheet of fine washi paper. There are worm holes, a centre fold as published (professionally flattened) and signs of handling. Each sheet has the plate number inscribed by an ancient hand in ink within the image borderline at the upper right corner.

I am selling this set of three extraordinary and very rare engravings for the total cost of AU$540 (currently US$403.71/EUR370.49/GBP314.77 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing these designs epitomising the spirit of the Italian Baroque age, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

These prints have been sold

Regarding the designs for this set of panels, the V & A Museum offers the following insights: “This type of ornament recalls the XVIth century mannerism style, with its anthropomorphic and metamorphic figures and animals shown amongst foliated [sic.]. Here the richness and strong rhythm of the friezes, creating lively movement, reflect Baroque tendencies of the seventeenth century.” (http://m.vam.ac.uk/collections/item/O111153/title-page-for-a-set-print-giancarli-polifilo/)

Leaving aside my personal fascination about the type of mind that concocted this entwined mixture of plant and figures, I decided to focus this discussion on two very different lines of enquiry concerning these prints: How long would they have taken Ciamberlano to engrave? How much did they cost at the time (i.e. the early 17^th century) to buy one?

Regarding the commitment of time necessary to engrave plates like these—and being mindful that some printmakers in the 17^th century were prone to exaggerate (e.g. Baglione’s estimate that Philippe Thomassin engraved at a rate of 6163 sq. mm per day)—my understanding is that the time is close to 5000 sq. mm per day. Presuming that this rate is fairly accurate, then each of these panels would take around eleven days to engrave. Of course, the engraving process is far slower than etching, in the sense that an engraved design would take about three times as long to execute than an etching, and so an etching of the same panel might be completed in around three to four days. (For riveting insights into the time taken to create printing plates in the 17^th century, see Michael Bury’s [2001], “The Print in Italy 1550–1620”, pp. 44–5.)

Regarding the cost of prints, Bury advises that Ciamberlano was paid (wholesale costs) 7 scudi per plate from 1609 to 1614. I had a bit of trouble converting the value of the scudi coin to today’s values but I did discover that a Cardinal who is second to the Pope earned 4000 scudi a year. Moreover, the cost of a permit to marry your cousin was 700 scudi. (So expensive!!!!) If one takes a loaf of bread as a point of comparison, then a loaf cost two baiocchi in the 17^th century and as there are one hundred baiocchi in a scudi then a scudi is worth fifty loaves of bread (i.e. AU$250). This means that if I wanted Ciamberlano to make an engraving for me, I should expect to pay AU$1750 (currently US$1306.94/EUR1200.85/GBP1019.55). In terms of how much an individual print would cost, I understand that 1000 impressions was not uncommon from an engraved plate at the time (with ongoing refinements) and so I guess that this would make each print worth AU$1.75 before any profits were added.