La Foire de l'Impruneta (Première Planche)

Aged 21, Jacques Callot visited the annual Fiera di San Luca at Impruneta, a village near Florence, on 18 October 1619. He was so impressed with what he saw that he filled an entire sketchbook on the occasion, which is today at the Uffizi in Florence (see for example inv. no. 613P). The present, very large etching was created the following year, based on his drawings of the whole panorama and many other, more detailed observations. When he left Florence a year later, following the death of Cosimo II de' Medici, he took the plate with him to his native city of Nancy, where it is still today at the Musée Lorrain. The print was in such demand that Callot produced a second version of the same subject in Nancy around 1622 (Lieure 478). Impressions of the second plate are much more common than the present first iteration, offered here in a rare contemporary impression.