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Thursday 30 March 2023

Claude Mellan’s engraving, “Council with the Holy Spirit above the Gospel, Surrounded by Clergy”, 1665


Claude Mellan (1598–1688)

“Council with the Holy Spirit above the Gospel, Surrounded by Clergy (aka “Concilie met de Heilige Geest boven het Evangelie, Omringd door geestelijken”; “Un Concile”), 1665, following the artist’s own design.

Engraving on laid paper, trimmed with a small margin around the image borderline on the top and sides, but within the borderline on the lower edge with loss of publication details and lower right corner (now replenished) and backed with a support sheet.

Size: (unevenly trimmed sheet) 28.6 x 45.5 cm.

State iii (of iii) showing a fragment of the banderole added in the third state; compare the impressions of the third state and second states held by the Rijksmuseum:  (state iii) http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.722392; (state ii) http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.152753.   

IFF 120-3(3)  (Département des Estampes 1939–, “Inventaire du Fonds Français: Graveurs du XVIIe Siècle”, vol., 17, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale , p. 89, cat. no. 120); Montaiglon 111 (Anatole de Montaiglon 1856. “Catalogue Raisonné de l'Oeuvre de Claude Mellan d'Abbeville”, Abbeville, P Briex, p. 126, cat. no. 111; see https://archive.org/details/catalogueraisonn00mont_0/page/126/mode/2up).

Anatole de Montaiglon (1856) offers the following description of this print: (transl.) “A Council. The book of the Gospels is open on a table placed in the centre of the composition; beside it, a standing clerk reads a paper, and above it hovers the Holy Spirit; on both sides are ranged bishops and seated or standing figures; in the centre of the foreground, a man, kneeling on the right, offers a book to a bishop seated on the left” (p. 126).

Condition: a well-printed impression, trimmed along the platemark on the top and sides but within the image on the lower edge with loss of the publication details. There are significant restorations and replenished areas—notably the lower right corner. Beyond these important condition issues, the sheet is in an otherwise good condition with no significant stains and has been laid onto a support of archival (millennium quality) washi paper.

I am selling this large and very rare engraving by the artist famous for his technical masterpiece of engraving inscribed with a single spiralling line, “Sudarium of Saint Veronica” (aka “Veil of St Veronica”), for the total cost of AU$514 (currently US$344.04/EUR317.07/GBP279.06 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 amazing engraving—a true tour de force of printmaking—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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