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Lot Essay
This monumental engraving printed on four joined sheets was created in Venice in 1575 after a design by the mannerist painter Antonio Campi. The complex and highly unusual composition is shown on several spatial planes devoted to different moments of the Passion of Christ. The focal point is the Crucifixion of Christ between the two Thieves on Mount Golgotha. Around this central scene other stages of the Passion are depicted on a smaller scale, including the Resurrection at upper right.
The print is an example of a collaboration between the designer of the composition and the engraver across different Northern Italian cities. According to a surviving document dated 22 April 1574 (see Sacchi, 1872), the Cremonese painter Antonio Campi appointed a procurator to conduct negotiations with the Veronese engravers and print dealers Nicolò Valegio and his son Giacomo Valegio, who were working in Venice at the time. The document states that Campi would provide them with the model drawing, to be returned to him once the engraving was completed, as well as with the copper plates and some cloth; in return, the Valegio workshop would initially print a total of two hundred impressions - one hundred on paper, one hundred on cloth - exclusively for Campi to sell, and with further impressions to be printed after eight months.
According to Bury (2001), the print exists in three states: the first state, presumably the impressions reserved for Campi, with the margin below the dedication left blank; a second state with the address of Nicolò Valegio; and finally a third, final state, with the name changed to Giacomo. The present example is closely trimmed to the dedication and lacks the lower border; it is therefore impossible to determine its state.
Although the engraving appears to have been printed in considerable numbers, we have not been able to trace any other examples in the auction records of the last thirty years. Four impressions are known in public collections: one in the Fondazione Biblioteca Morcelli-Pinacoteca Repossi in Chiari, Brescia (inv. no. 00619835); and the three listed by Bury, including one at the Albertina, Vienna.
F. Sacchi, Notizie Pittoriche Cremonesi, 1872, p. 240.
M. Bury, The Print in Italy 1550-1620, 2001, London, fig.3, p.70-79.
The print is an example of a collaboration between the designer of the composition and the engraver across different Northern Italian cities. According to a surviving document dated 22 April 1574 (see Sacchi, 1872), the Cremonese painter Antonio Campi appointed a procurator to conduct negotiations with the Veronese engravers and print dealers Nicolò Valegio and his son Giacomo Valegio, who were working in Venice at the time. The document states that Campi would provide them with the model drawing, to be returned to him once the engraving was completed, as well as with the copper plates and some cloth; in return, the Valegio workshop would initially print a total of two hundred impressions - one hundred on paper, one hundred on cloth - exclusively for Campi to sell, and with further impressions to be printed after eight months.
According to Bury (2001), the print exists in three states: the first state, presumably the impressions reserved for Campi, with the margin below the dedication left blank; a second state with the address of Nicolò Valegio; and finally a third, final state, with the name changed to Giacomo. The present example is closely trimmed to the dedication and lacks the lower border; it is therefore impossible to determine its state.
Although the engraving appears to have been printed in considerable numbers, we have not been able to trace any other examples in the auction records of the last thirty years. Four impressions are known in public collections: one in the Fondazione Biblioteca Morcelli-Pinacoteca Repossi in Chiari, Brescia (inv. no. 00619835); and the three listed by Bury, including one at the Albertina, Vienna.
F. Sacchi, Notizie Pittoriche Cremonesi, 1872, p. 240.
M. Bury, The Print in Italy 1550-1620, 2001, London, fig.3, p.70-79.