Two Engravings of Scenes from the New Testament

These two large and rare engravings, created in the second half of the 16th century, have been largely ignored by earlier catalogues of Italian printmaking. The Crucifixion or Christ crucified between the two Thieves is inscribed in the plate Luca Bertelli formis, indicating that it was published by Bertelli, who was working in Venice as a bookseller and publisher, but engraved by another, yet-to-be-identified hand. To our knowledge, the print is not described in any of the literature relating to Bertelli's print production (Le Blanc, Meyer, M. Grosso, etc.). The only other impression we were able to find in public collections is in the Albertina, Vienna; catalogued as engraved by Bertelli after Michelangelo (inv. no. It/II/15/81).
Only a few sources (Passavant, Nagler and Bianchi) mention the other print in this lot, Christ and the Woman of Samaria, by Mario Cartaro after Michelangelo, with the address of and published by Ferrando Bertelli, another member of the same family of Venetian librai. It is a copy of an earlier version by Nicolas Beatrizet, (B. 17), in the same direction. A third, anonymous version of the subject was sold at Christie's, London, on 19 January 2021, lot 39.