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Lot Essay
Only 17 etchings are firmly attributed to an artist known as Juste de Juste. He has been tentatively identified as Giusto Betti, the main exponent of a family of sculptors from Tuscany, who had moved to France in 1504 and settled in Tours. During the 1530s, Betti is known to have worked on the decorations of the Palace of Fontainebleau as a painter, stucco worker and sculptor. It was Jules Renouvier, in the 19th century, who first suggested that this artist must be the author of a small group of rather eccentric prints inscribed with the word IVSTE.
The subject of all these etchings are emaciated male nudes, presented in twisted poses against largely blank backgrounds. Eleven of the 17 known plates show single figures in a variety of poses. The remaining five, including the present one, depict rather precariously balanced, acrobatic pyramids of five or six men. Stylistically, these bizarre creations do not quite fit the manner of Fontainebleau, and the watermarks present in these sheets differ from those found in the papers used at the printing workshop of Fontainebleau. However, the highly artificial and exaggerated manner of these prints and their experimental, less-than-perfect technical appearance certainly suggest a common or at least related artistic and cultural background.
Irrespective of the uncertainty of their attribution and origin, these decidedly anti-classical, grotesque works are among the most fascinating and sought-after prints of the 16th century. Given their radical, idiosyncratic nature, they must have been printed in small numbers at the time and as a result are very rare today. To our knowledge, the present subject has been offered only once at auction within the last thirty years: this very same impression, exactly thirty years ago, at Christie's, London, on 30 June 1994; and it is missing from most public graphic collections.
See C. Jenkins, The Renaissance of Etching, New York, 2019, p. 235-36.
The subject of all these etchings are emaciated male nudes, presented in twisted poses against largely blank backgrounds. Eleven of the 17 known plates show single figures in a variety of poses. The remaining five, including the present one, depict rather precariously balanced, acrobatic pyramids of five or six men. Stylistically, these bizarre creations do not quite fit the manner of Fontainebleau, and the watermarks present in these sheets differ from those found in the papers used at the printing workshop of Fontainebleau. However, the highly artificial and exaggerated manner of these prints and their experimental, less-than-perfect technical appearance certainly suggest a common or at least related artistic and cultural background.
Irrespective of the uncertainty of their attribution and origin, these decidedly anti-classical, grotesque works are among the most fascinating and sought-after prints of the 16th century. Given their radical, idiosyncratic nature, they must have been printed in small numbers at the time and as a result are very rare today. To our knowledge, the present subject has been offered only once at auction within the last thirty years: this very same impression, exactly thirty years ago, at Christie's, London, on 30 June 1994; and it is missing from most public graphic collections.
See C. Jenkins, The Renaissance of Etching, New York, 2019, p. 235-36.