Lanfranco, Giovanni + Badalocchio, Sisto. Historia Testamento Vecchio. Raphael For Sale

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RARE COMPLETE SET OF THIS SUITE OF 54 ETCHINGS AFTER RAPHAEL BY GIOVANNI LANFRANCO AND SISTO BADALOCCHIO.
LANFRANCO, Giovanni + BADALOCCHIO, Sisto. "Historia Del Testamento Vecchio, Dipinta in Roma Nel Vaticano Da Raffaello Di Urbino Et Intagliata in rame da Sisto Badalocchi et Giovanni Lanfranchi Parmigiani Al Sig Annibale Carracci"

In Roma : appresso à Giovanni Orlandi ..., 1607 . (possibly 1614?)

Oblong 4to. 54 engraved plates; engraved title, three engraved text leaves, 45 engraved scenes from the Old testament and five engraved scenes from the New Testament, most engravings signed in the plate by Lanfranco or Badalocchio. Light age toning, small water stain in upper blank margin of first sixteen engraved plates, title page slightly dusty, text rubbed out in lower margin of title, two small rust holes in last plate, the odd marginal thumb mark, small ink stain in one plate. A good copy with good even impressions of the plates. Disbound.

REMARKABLE SUITE OF ENGRAVINGS, YOUTHFUL WORKS OF ART BY TWO BAROQUE MASTERS.
Sisto Badalocchio, in collaboration with Giovanni Lanfranco, etched this suite of prints titled Historia del Testamento Vecchio after the frescoes executed by Raphael's workshop in the Vatican Logge; The volume includes a title page, three leaves of dedicatory text to Annibale Carracci signed by Sisto Badalocchio and Giovanni Lanfranco (pl. 2-4), and 50 leaves of plates depicting Old and New Testament scenes after paintings by Raphael.

54 ETCHINGS BY LANFRANCO AND BADALOCCHIO AFTER RAPHAEL MADE IN 1607
Rare suite of engravings after Raphael’s frescoes in the Vatican Loggia, a collaboration between Sisto Badalocchio and Giovanni Lanfranco when both were pupils of Annibale Carracci (to whom the suite is dedicated). The work is of interest both for the ways in which these distinctive artists practiced the art of engraving during the earliest periods of their careers, as well as for the Mannerist spin on Raphael’s frescoes. Although in some of the plates, Lanfranco arguably shows a slight edge in replicating the wave-like masses of background cross-hatching one typically associates with Carracci and which typically seem to fly off the page, the overall treatment shows considerable stylistic unity, in which areas of densely worked detailed areas alternate with sketchier, less worked areas. The suite had the dual function of disseminating the designs of one of Raphael’s most famous and admired compositions throughout Europe (as with Raimondi a century earlier, albeit here through Baroque eyes), but may also have been bought by pilgrims visiting the frescoes in Rome.

A PARTICULARLY RARE COMPLETE SET
This suite is very rare and even rarer in a complete or unmixed state. Antiquarians would often break the set to sell the engravings individually.

A. Birke, Italian Massters of the 17th century (1982), 40 [xviii/ii] of The Illustrated Bartsch, 304-31. Schleier in DA 18.730-7.

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This item has been shown 236 times. Lanfranco, Giovanni + Badalocchio, Sisto. Historia Testamento Vecchio. Raphael: $1,478