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Thursday 7 March 2019

Louis Jacob's etching, “Persée et Andromede”, c1729, after Veronese


Louis Jacob (1696– c1760)

“Persée et Andromede” (Perseus and Andromeda), c1729, after the painting of the same composition by Paolo Veronese (aka Paolo Caliar; Paul Veronése) (1528–1588) in the Musée des Beaux-arts, Rennes, from the series, “Recueil d'estampes d'après les plus beaux tableaux et d'après les plus beaux desseins qui sont en France” (aka Recueil Crozat; Cabinet Crozat), published in 1729 by Imprimerie Royale (1640–1792), Paris.

Etching on laid paper trimmed close to (or slightly within) the plate mark and backed with a support sheet.
Size: (sheet) 42.3 x 30 cm; (image borderline) 37.3 x 29.5 cm.
Lettered on plate below image borderline: (centre) “Persée et Andromede/ D'Après le tableau de Paul Veronése, qui est dans le Cabinet du Roy./ Peint sur toile, haut de 9. pieds, large de 8. gravé par Louis Jacob.”; (left) “L [J]acob f.”

IFF 14 (Inventaire du Fonds Français: Bibliothèque Nationale, Département des Estampes, Paris, 1930); Le Blanc 9

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:
“Perseus and Andromeda after Veronese, with Andromeda chained to a rock at right, and Perseus arriving from the top left corner and slaying the monster.”

See also the brief description of this print at the Rijksmuseum:

My short version of the Greek myth about Perseus and Andromeda is as follows (with significant leaps in the story):

The King of Argos was worried by a prophecy that a grandson would kill him. His solution was simple: he locked his only daughter, Danae, in an underground bronze chamber to ensure that no one would ever snuggle up to her and produce a grandson. The plan failed. The great god Zeus found out about the lovely Danae and sought entry to her chamber by morphing himself as golden rain seepage … (yuck!). Like all happy stories, Zeus (in his clever disguise as golden rain) has a baby boy named Perseus.

Alarmed at now having a grandson, the King of Argos decided to make his daughter and his baby grandson “disappear” and so he squashed them into a wooden chest and discretely dropped the chest into the sea so that they would quietly drown. Fortunately the couple were rescued (with intervention from Zeus and Poseidon) and they spent the next few years on an island under the care of local fishermen.

Sadly, all was not wonderful. An admirer of Danae—another king—perceived that Perseus was an awkward inconvenience to his ardent courting of Danae and he set Perseus the mission—a mission of no return—of killing the fearsome snake-haired Gorgon Medusa which could turn mortals to stone by a single look at its face. Needless to say, Perseus killed and beheaded the Medusa.

On his way home with his trophy head, Perseus is shocked to find a young maiden chained to a rock waiting to be eaten by the sea monster, Cetus. He promptly kills this monster, frees the maiden and takes her home with him to be his wife.

Curiously, this illustration does not show Perseus holding the Medusa’s head and the distant shoreline has a touch of Venice about it.

For a “proper” account of this story see Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” (4: 765–86)

Condition: magnificent impression (i.e. a near faultless impression showing no sign of wear to the printing plate) laid upon a support sheet of archival (millennium quality) washi paper. The sheet is in excellent condition for its age but there are minor handling marks at the edges (i.e. there is a loss of the corner margin at the upper right, a chipped/rounded lower left corner and a few dusty marks).

I am selling this large and graphically strong etching from the early 1700s, for the total cost of AU$196 (currently US$138.02/EUR121.97/GBP104.82 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this superb etching after Veronese’s painting, 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










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