Gallery of prints for sale

Saturday 3 July 2021

Pieter Nolpe’s etching, “Marie de Medici Begs the Gods for Help”, 1638, after Nicolaes Cornelisz. Moyaert

Pieter Nolpe (1613/14 - c.1652/3)

“Marie de Medici Begs the Gods for Help” (aka “Allegory on the Discord in France”; “Franse maagd smeekt de goden om hulp” [French virgin begs the gods for help] [Rijksmuseum title]), 1638, after Nicolaes Cornelisz. Moyaert (aka Claes Cornelisz Moeyaert;  Nicolaes Cornelisz. Moeyart) (1590/1600–1655), plate 10 from the series of 16 plates, “Festivities at the visit of Maria de' Medici to Amsterdam in 1638” published in Amsterdam by Johannes Blaeu (Joan Blaeu; Johannes Willemszoon Blaeu; Johan Blaeu; Jan Willemsz Blaeu) (1596–1673) and Cornelis Blaeu (aka Cornelius Blaeu) (1610–1648) in 1638 as a folded insert between pages 48 and 49 in Kaspar van Baerle’s (aka Caspar van Barlaeus) (1584–1648), “Medicea hospes, sive Descriptio pvblicæ gratvlationis: qua Serenissimam, Augustissimamque reginam, Mariam de Medicis, excepit Senatvs popvlvsqve Amstelodamensis.”

Archive.org offers an online view of this print in its context in Van Baerle’s publication: https://archive.org/details/mediceahospessiv00baer/page/n81/mode/2up).

Etching on laid paper with a small margin around the platemark, backed with a support sheet.
Size: (sheet) 32.4 x 41.1 cm; (plate) 30.1 x 38.9 cm; (image borderline) 29.5 x 38.2 cm.

Inscribed in plate within the image borderline: (lower right) “CL [ligature initials] M Inv.”

Numbered in plate below the image borderline: (lower right) “10”.

State iii (of iii) with the addition of the plate number (“10”). Note that the Orn Cat does not make a distinction between states ii and iii.

Orn Cat II 10046 (Peter Fuhring; transl. from the Dutch by Jennifer Kilian and Katy Kist 2004, “Ornament prints in the Rijksmuseum II: the seventeenth century”, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum Sound and Vision, vol. 3, pp. 70–71, cat. no. 190046); Hollstein Dutch 100.

The Rijksmuseum offers the following description of this print:

(Transl.) “Tableau vivant with the French virgin, proposed by Maria de' Medici, begging the gods for help. Henry IV, dressed as Hercules, is ordered to unify the country again. Peace, Amor and Venus look in horror at the globe of the French Empire, which has been split in two. Justice is on the ground. Behind Maria de' Medici stands Bacchus. Performance used in the water theater on the Rokin. Numbered lower right: 10. Plate 10 of the illustrations with the description of the festivities surrounding the visit of Maria de' Medici to Amsterdam from 31 August to 5 September 1638” (http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.163305).

See also the description offered by the Metropolitan Museum of Art: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/698754.

Condition: a strong impression with small margins around the platemark (approx. 1 cm) and laid upon an archival support sheet of millennium quality washi paper which has flattened the publication centrefold so that it is almost invisible. The upper left margin is fractured and has been restored otherwise the sheet is in a very good condition with no holes, stains or foxing.

I am selling this remarkable etching showing Henry IV cast in a tableau vivant as Hercules while Marie de Medici pleads to the gods of classical mythology to repair the world broken in halves, for the total cost of AU$354 (currently US$266.55/EUR224.51/GBP192.78 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 marvellous amalgam of classical antiquity with politics and the Baroque Age—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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