The Drunken Silenus ('The Tazza Farnese') (B. 18; Bo. 19)

Details

Annibale Carracci
The Drunken Silenus ('The Tazza Farnese') (B. 18; Bo. 19)
engraving printed from a silver plate, 1597-1600, watermark Bunch of Grapes with Leaf and Pendant Initial V, a very good though later impression of this rare and important print, trimmed outside the subject, just touching the outer vines and leaves of grass in places, with a horizontal central crease, otherwise in good condition; with Venus and Satyr (or Jupiter and Antiope) (B. 17; Bo. 19) by the same hand, etching and engraving, 1592, a good impression, with small margins, generally in good condition
S. approx. 235 mm. (diameter) (2)

Provenance

S. Isham (L. 1402)

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

Lot Essay

The engraving The Drunken Silenus was thought to be a copy of a silver cup designed by Annibale Carracci for the Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, known as The Tazza Farnese. This lost tazza was only known through the descriptions of several 17th century biographers. In the 1950's however, Otto Kurz rediscovered the tazza in the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples and demonstrated that the impressions were in fact printed directly from the famous silver dish.

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