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Lot Essay
The present large and elegant chiaroscuro woodcut by the Mantuan woodcutter Andrea Andreani is based on a design made by Raffaellino (Motta) da Reggio, a mannerist Emilian painter who died in 1578, seven year before the print was published.
The woodcut is dated 1585, when Andreani lived in Florence and worked at the Court of Duke Francesco de' Medici, before he moved to Siena. The relationship between Andreani and Raffaellino is not documented. Andreani may have met the artist in Rome or been given or shown the drawing by one of his patrons.
Raffaellino was not new to printmaking: his works were translated into woodcuts and engravings by other printmakers, including Diana Ghisi. His tonal, luminous works, with a skilfull use of chiaroscuro and bright effects, were attractive for chiaroscuro woodcutters like Andreani.
The development of the composition is documented in four different drawings: a highly finished pen, brown ink and wash drawing in the Uffizi (inv. no. 914s), two intermediary drawings at Louvre and Chatsworth and a small study for the head of Nicodemus, in black and red crayon, in the Collection Ubaldini in Urbania's Municipal Library (see M. Cellini, Disegni della Biblioteca Comunale di Urbania - La Collezione Ubaldini, 1999, Milano, Vol. II, no. 588, p. 429).
The woodcut is dated 1585, when Andreani lived in Florence and worked at the Court of Duke Francesco de' Medici, before he moved to Siena. The relationship between Andreani and Raffaellino is not documented. Andreani may have met the artist in Rome or been given or shown the drawing by one of his patrons.
Raffaellino was not new to printmaking: his works were translated into woodcuts and engravings by other printmakers, including Diana Ghisi. His tonal, luminous works, with a skilfull use of chiaroscuro and bright effects, were attractive for chiaroscuro woodcutters like Andreani.
The development of the composition is documented in four different drawings: a highly finished pen, brown ink and wash drawing in the Uffizi (inv. no. 914s), two intermediary drawings at Louvre and Chatsworth and a small study for the head of Nicodemus, in black and red crayon, in the Collection Ubaldini in Urbania's Municipal Library (see M. Cellini, Disegni della Biblioteca Comunale di Urbania - La Collezione Ubaldini, 1999, Milano, Vol. II, no. 588, p. 429).