Search Results

(b Sassoferrato, c. 1470; d Cupramontana, c. 1540).

Italian painter and possible woodcutter. He spent his early years in Sassoferrato, where his family owned a ceramics workshop. Around 1497 he probably visited the Veneto region, since his Virgin and Child with Saints (Padua, Mus. Civ.) painted that year shows the strong influence of painters active there such as Cima da Conegliano. The painting also reflects the Bolognese style of Francesco Francia and that of the Romagnian Marco Palmezzano. In Venice, Agabiti may have made woodcuts after the illustrations for Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Venice, 1499). By 1502 he had returned to the Marches, where he executed a painting (untraced) for S Rocco, Jesi, the town where in 1507 he is documented as residing. After 1510 he was again in Sassoferrato, where in 1511 he signed and dated both the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints (Sassoferrato, Gal. A. Mod. & Contemp.) and the Nativity in S Maria del Piano. In ...

(b Borgo San Sepolcro, Feb 24, 1553; d Rome, Oct 18, 1615).

Italian painter and printmaker, brother of Alessandro Alberti. The best known of the three sons of Alberto Alberti, he distinguished himself as a printmaker at an early age. One of his earliest prints, an etching of the Virgin and Child (1568; b. 149) shows his interest in Raphael as well as in contemporary Mannerist art. In Rome he studied with Cornelius Cort, whose swelling burin line he adopted to create pictorial effects of strong chiaroscuro. Between 1571 and 1575 he made several prints after Federico Zuccaro and Taddeo Zuccaro (b. 131, 136, 140, 159, 171, 176). During the next ten years he reached the height of his fame as a printmaker, producing engravings after Raphael, Michelangelo, Polidoro da Caravaggio and of ancient statues. His prints of Polidoro are particularly valued as documents of lost works. He also made prints from paintings by Andrea del Sarto, Rosso Fiorentino, Marco Pino, ...

(b Paderborn, 1502; d Soest, Westphalia, 1555–61).

German engraver, painter and designer. He was the most important graphic artist in Westphalia in the 16th century. His reputation rests largely on his ornamental designs, which make up about one third of his c. 300 engravings. They were principally intended as models for metalworkers but were also adapted by other craftsmen for such decorative arts as enamel, intarsia and book illustration. Aldegrever followed Dürer and the Nuremberg Little Masters, deriving models for his paintings and subject prints as well as a full repertory of Renaissance ornamental motifs: fig and Acanthus foliage, vases and cornucopia, combined with putti and satyrs, tritons, mermaids and dolphins, sphinxes, masks and medallions. From the beginning of his career Aldegrever was aware of the artistic trends of the time: the Dürer influence was strongest at its outset yielding somewhat in work of the 1530s to Mannerist tendencies under Netherlandish influence, though never waning entirely.

Aldegrever was the son of Hermann Trippenmeker (...

[Jobst, Jos]

(b Zurich, bapt June 13, 1539; d Nuremberg, March 17, 1591).

Swiss draughtsman, woodcutter, engraver, etcher and painter. He was the youngest son of the noted scholar and Chorherr in Zurich, Johann Jakob Amman, a friend of Ulrich Zwingli and Gessner, (Johann) Konrad. Although a successful pupil at the renowned Collegium Carolinum where his father was a professor, Jost, like his brother Josua (1531–64), who became a goldsmith, did not take up a scholarly career. As early as 1556–7 his copies of prints by other artists, for example Dürer, Albrecht (b. 94) and Solis family §(1) (b. 249), show an independent and original approach. For his apprenticeship Amman may have been in Basle or Zurich, but he probably spent some time in Paris or Lyon, since his early works show a close similarity to French book illustrations.

In 1561 Amman was in Nuremberg, where he may have worked with Solis, the chief illustrator for the Frankfurt am Main publisher ...

( fl c. 1475–?1519).

Italian engraver and painter. A painter named Zoan Andrea is recorded in a letter of September 1475 written to Ludovico II Gonzaga, 2nd Marchese of Mantua, by Simone Ardizoni da Reggio, a painter and engraver. Simone claimed that he and Zoan Andrea had been brutally assaulted on the orders of Andrea Mantegna. Mantegna was enraged to hear that the two had remade some of his prints. Their exact crime is not clear, but it has been suggested that they had re-engraved Mantegna’s original plates. Given this connection with Mantegna’s circle of engravers, it is likely that Zoan Andrea can be identified with the anonymous artist who signed himself za on 20 engravings, the earliest of which show a strong dependence on Mantegna, both in technique and composition. The three monogrammed engravings closest to Mantegna are of Hercules and Deianira (b. 2509.005), Judith and Holofernes (b. 2509.001) and an ...

(b Mantua, 1558–9; d 1629).

Italian woodcutter and printer. He was the only printmaker to produce a significant number of chiaroscuro woodcuts in Italy in the second half of the 16th century; he also reprinted chiaroscuro woodblocks originally cut 60 or 70 years earlier. He made at least 35 prints in both black and white and colour (many multiple-sheet), using a sophisticated style of cutting characterized by thin, closed contours. Based in Florence in 1584–5 and from 1586 in Siena, by 1590 he was also finding work in his native Mantua, where he is documented as establishing a workshop. He reproduced the designs of artists in diverse media with great fidelity: for example he made several prints (1586–90) after Domenico Beccafumi’s intarsia pavement designs in Siena Cathedral, three prints (1584) from different angles of Giambologna’s marble sculpture of the Rape of the Sabines (Florence, Loggia dei Lanzi; see fig.), as well as of the bas-relief on the base of the same group and of Giambologna’s relief of ...

(fl Basle, 1485; d 1524).

German engraver and printer. He established himself in Basle in 1485 but subsequently worked as a printer in Strasbourg (1487, 1488), Pforzheim (1500–10), Tübingen (1511–17) and Hagenau (1516–22). Although a few of his prints bear dates between 1501 and 1506, stylistically his work belongs to the 15th-century tradition....

(b Amsterdam, c. 1505; d Amsterdam, 1553).

Dutch printmaker, painter and cartographer, maternal grandson of Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen. He was the dominant figure in the creation of north Netherlandish woodcuts from the mid-1530s until his death. His monogram, which combines the initials ‘C’ and ‘T’ with the staff and bell of St Anthony, was probably inspired by his father’s first name. The greater part of his career was apparently spent in his native Amsterdam, where he probably trained with his grandfather.

Cornelis Anthonisz.’s earliest extant work is a signed and dated panel painting known as the Braspenningsmaaltijd (‘Banquet of the copper coin’, 1533; Amsterdam, Hist. Mus.), which depicts 17 members of the Crossbowmen’s Guild, one of Amsterdam’s civic militia companies. Departing from the traditional isocephalic format for such paintings, Cornelis introduced a narrative element by arranging his subjects around a banquet table. The young man standing directly below the monogram and date at the upper left is probably a self-portrait. His next extant, autograph painting is a ...

(b Villanueva de los Infantes, Ciudad Real, Nov 3, 1633; d Seville, Jan 12, 1703).

Spanish painter and etcher. He is first documented in Seville in 1652 and entered the painters’ guild there on 16 June 1656. His mature style is predominantly influenced by the work of Murillo and, to a lesser extent, that of Juan de Valdés Leal. In 1675, with Bernardo Simón de Pineda, Arteaga y Alfaro designed the new altarpiece in the Royal Chapel in Seville Cathedral. His first independent commission dates from 1676, yet his finest work is the set of nine Old Testament scenes from 1690 (Seville Cathedral). Although he also worked as a gilder, the trade in painting with the New World was an important source of income for him. He was a prolific but not gifted etcher, producing prints from 1661 until the year of his death. His exact relationship to the etcher Bartolomé Arteaga (fl 1627) is unclear. Francisco de Arteaga (d 1679), Matías’s son (not his brother), was also an etcher. In Seville, Arteaga y Alfaro served the guild and the Real Academia de Santa Isabel de Hungría in various posts....

[Óbidos, Josefa d’]

(b Seville, c. 1630; d Óbidos, July 22, 1684).

Portuguese painter and engraver. She was the daughter of the Portuguese painter Baltazar Gomes Figueira (1597–1674) and a Spanish lady, Doña Catarina de Ayala y Cabrera. After the restoration of the Portuguese monarchy in 1640 the family moved to Coimbra. Here Josefa began her apprenticeship under her father, a painter of landscapes, still-lifes and religious works, who in 1644 painted the retable of Nossa Senhora da Graça, Coimbra, in the naturalist-tenebrist style he had learnt in Seville in the circles of Juan del Castillo, Juan de Roelas and Francisco de Zurbarán.

Josefa’s first known work is an engraving of St Catharine (1646; Lisbon, Mateus José de Arriaga Xavier da Costa priv. col., see 1984 exh. cat., pl. 1). In 1647 she painted on copper the Mystic Marriage of St Catharine (Lisbon, Mus. N.A. Ant.), which, despite the artificial lighting, dainty figures and the almost obsessive piety, shows her promise as a painter in oils. The fine painting on copper of ...

(b Parma, June 28, 1585; d after Sept 13, 1619).

Italian painter and etcher . His formation as an artist took place within the Carracci circle. According to Malvasia, he may have attended the Carracci Academy in Bologna, before returning to Parma in 1600 as the pupil of Agostino Carracci when the latter entered the service of Ranuccio I Farnese, 4th Duke of Parma. After Agostino’s death in 1602, Badalocchio and his fellow pupil Giovanni Lanfranco were sent by the Duke to Rome in order to complete their training in the studio of Annibale Carracci, who was then working in the Palazzo Farnese. Badalocchio remained with Annibale until the latter’s death in 1609. He participated in most of the projects that occupied the studio assistants during those years, such as the frescoes on the walls of the Galleria in the Palazzo Farnese and those previously in the Herrera Chapel in S Maria di Monserrato, Rome (now detached and divided between Madrid, Prado, and Barcelona, Mus. A. Catalunya), although his precise share in them is still debated. His first signed works are etchings, one (...

(b ?1436; ? bur Florence, Dec 12, 1487).

Italian goldsmith and engraver . According to Vasari, he was a follower of Maso Finiguerra and engraved a series of 19 prints after designs by Botticelli. These illustrate an edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy published in 1481. A group of prints in the same Fine Manner style is attributed to Baldini. His designs incorporate figures and motifs derived from Botticelli, Piero Pollaiuolo and also German printmakers, such as the Master E.S. and Martin Schongauer, but particularly from Finiguerra. Baldini’s Fine Manner style developed from Finiguerra’s niello print technique; the rendering of spatial recession in the large Judgement Hall of Pilate (435×598 mm) suggests it was designed by Finiguerra. With the other prints, however, it shares the decorative quality and emphasis on pattern characteristic of Baldini.

Prints attributed to Baldini include the series of Planets (c. 1465), based on northern woodcuts, and a series of Prophets and Sibyls (early 1470s), as adapted from the characters in a mystery play; the exotic costumes reflect those worn in festival processions. Antonio Bettini’s ...

(b ?Schwäbisch Gmünd, 1484 or 1485; d Strassburg [now Strasbourg, France], 1545).

German painter, printmaker, draughtsman and stained-glass designer. Such contemporaries as Jean Pélerin (De artificiali perspectiva, 1521) and the Alsatian humanist Beatus Rhenanus in 1526 counted him among the greatest artists of his time. In the opinion of specialists today, Baldung’s work places him only half a step behind Grünewald, Dürer and Hans Holbein the younger. A prodigious and imaginative artist of great originality, versatility and passion, Baldung was fascinated with witchcraft and superstition and possessed a desire for novelty of subjects and interpretation that sometimes borders on the eccentric. The new themes he introduced include the supernatural and the erotic. He was the first to show the erotic nature of the Fall in his chiaroscuro woodcut of Adam and Eve (1511; Hollstein, no. 3) and illustrated the successive stages of mating behaviour of horses in his woodcut series of Wild Horses in the forest (1534; Hollstein, nos 238–40); and he is remembered especially for his images of witches. Dürer influenced him only in an early stage but not lastingly. Baldung had a very different sensibility and lacked Dürer’s sense of decorum. Grünewald, whose monumental ...

(b Verona, Aug 12, 1666; d Verona, April 21, 1740).

Italian painter and printmaker. His altarpieces and history paintings, which unite late Baroque classicism with Venetian colour, brought new life to north Italian painting. The son of Lucia Boschetti and Francesco Balestra, a wealthy merchant, he studied literature, rhetoric and the humanities, but, after lessons in drawing and perspective with Giovanni Zeffis (d 1688) and one Monsignor Bianchini (1646–1724), he moved to Venice in 1687 and trained with Antonio Bellucci. In 1691 he transferred to Rome, where he studied with Carlo Maratti, whose art continued a classical tradition that can be traced back to Raphael, and where he also absorbed the work of Annibale Carracci and Domenichino. In 1694 Balestra’s large drawing of the Fall of the Giants (Rome, Gal. Accad. N. S Luca) won first prize in a competition at the Accademia di S Luca. In 1695 he returned to Verona, where he was acclaimed as the chief exponent in the Veneto of Maratti’s late Baroque classicism. His pictures of this period were mainly small religious works, such as the ...

[Pieter]

(b Antwerp, c. 1526–28; d Antwerp, 1584).

South Netherlandish painter, draughtsman, engraver and publisher. He was the son of the sculptor Balten Janszoon de Costere (fl 1524). In 1550 he became a master in the Guild of St Luke in Antwerp and in 1569 its dean. Primarily on the authority of van Mander, Baltens was long considered to be an inferior imitator of Bruegel family, §1 the elder. Baltens’s best-known work, the signed St Martin’s Day Kermis (e.g. versions Amsterdam, Rijksmus.; Antwerp, Kon. Mus. S. Kst.), was formerly thought to be a free copy after Bruegel’s treatment of the subject, known through an engraving and the Gift of St Martin, a fragment on cloth (Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.). The relationship between Baltens and Bruegel is, however, more complicated. In 1551 they collaborated on an altarpiece (destr.) for the Mechelen Glovemakers. Baltens’s other works, for example the Ecce homo (Antwerp, Kon. Acad. S. Kst.), reveal that the two artists were closely associated: a group from the ...

(b ?Venice, c. 1460–70; d Mechelen or Brussels, before July 17, 1516).

Italian painter and printmaker . He was the first Italian Renaissance artist of note who travelled to the courts of Germany and the Netherlands. His earliest known works appear to date from the late 1490s, suggesting that he was born c.1460–70. The birthdate of c. 1440 traditionally assigned to him reflects the misinterpretation of a document of 1512 in which his patron, Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, awarded him a stipend because of his ‘weakness and old age’. In fact, at this date a man could be described as ‘old’ while in his fifties or even younger (Gilbert).

Barbari probably trained with Alvise Vivarini in Venice in the 1490s. His earliest dated work, the celebrated bird’s-eye View of Venice, a monumental woodcut produced between 1497 and 1500, can be securely attributed to him on the basis of style (12 extant copies, e.g. London, BM; original blocks in Venice, Correr). It also bears the caduceus, with which Barbari signed nearly all his works. Two other large woodcut compositions, the ...

[Bononia, Baveram de; Carocci, Baverio de’]

(fl c. 1515–after 1527).

Italian printer. From northern Italy, possibly of German descent, he was an assistant in Raphael’s workshop in Rome. From 1515–16 he was the workshop printer of the engraved plates that Raphael commissioned from Marcantonio Raimondi. He is mentioned in documents dated 1515, 1516 and 1523. After Raphael’s death in 1520, he evidently continued in his position under the new head of the workshop, Giulio Romano. He became an independent printer in 1524 and was still working in Rome after the Sack in 1527. According to Vasari, Baviera printed plates engraved by Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio, including the Labours of Hercules (b. 44–9), the Gods and Goddesses in Niches (b. 24–43), the Loves of the Gods (b. 9–23) and the Rape of the Sabine Women (b. 63).

(b Thionville, 1507, or Lunéville, 1515; d Rome, c. 1565).

French engraver. He was probably related to a family of goldsmiths from Nancy, but his working life was spent in Italy. He produced many engravings for publishers in Rome and specialized mostly in reproducing Italian paintings, views of ancient Rome and to a lesser extent portraits. He worked for the engraver and publisher Tommaso Barlacchi in 1541 and 1550, producing Joseph Interpreting Pharaoh’s Dreams (Robert-Dumesnil, no. 2), the Ascension (rd 14) and Christ Delivering Souls from Limbo (rd 15) after Raphael. He also worked for Antonio Salamanca, for whom he made versions of paintings by Raphael, Michelangelo (e.g. Virgin of Sorrows, 1547; rd 18) and Baccio Bandinelli (e.g. Struggle between Reason and the Passions, 1545; rd 36).

After 1547 Beatrizet seems to have worked for Antoine Lafréry, for whom he made engravings of views of Roman monuments and antique sculptures—for example The Pantheon (rd 103) and the ...

(di Giacomo di Pace)

(b Cortine in Valdibiana Montaperti, 1484; d Siena, between Jan and May 1551).

Italian painter, sculptor, draughtsman, printmaker and illuminator. He was one of the protagonists, perhaps even the most precocious, of Tuscan Mannerism, which he practised with a strong sense of his Sienese artistic background but at the same time with an awareness of contemporary developments in Florence and Rome. He responded to the new demand for feeling and fantasy while retaining the formal language of the early 16th century. None of Beccafumi’s works is signed or dated, but his highly personal maniera has facilitated almost unanimous agreement regarding the definition of his corpus and the principal areas of influence on it. However, some questions concerning the circumstances of his early career and the choices available to him remain unanswered. The more extreme forms of Beccafumi’s reckless experimentation underwent a critical reappraisal only in the later 20th century.

The primary sources of information concerning Beccafumi are Vasari’s biography (1568) and archival findings, mostly 19th century, relating to the artist. Vasari, although a direct acquaintance of Beccafumi in his last years and in a position to gather information from mutual friends, was, predictably, unreliable in regard to his early career. According to Vasari, Mecherino, the son of a poor farmer named Giacomo di Pace, became the protégé of ...

(b Fossano, nr Turin, 1636; d Naples, Sept 28, 1688).

Italian painter, engraver and draughtsman. He studied with Esprit Grandjean (fl 1642–55), a painter working at the court of Savoy in Turin from 1642, and won the protection of Christina, Duchess of Savoy (1606–63). By 1652 Beinaschi had settled in Rome. This date appears on the engraving he made (b. 20) of Giovanni Domenico Cerrini’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt (untraced). As a pupil of the engraver Pietro del Pò (1610–92), Beinaschi made copies after Annibale Carracci’s frescoes in the Galleria Farnese, Rome, after Giovanni Lanfranco’s frescoes in S Andrea della Valle and S Carlo ai Catinari, and after the Classical sculptures in the Belvedere in the Vatican. Beinaschi was deeply attracted by Lanfranco’s illusionism, and it seems likely that he made a journey to Parma to study the frescoed domes executed by Correggio (de Dominici). His earliest works, the St John the Baptist Preaching in the Desert...