Prints and Drawings

La quarta esposizione del ciclo “Brera mai vista” (Milano, Pinacoteca di Brera, sala XXXIV, ottobre - dicembre 2002) ha presentato alcuni dei 61 bellissimi studi ad olio su carta del pittore milanese Francesco Londonio, entrati a far parte del patrimonio artistico dell'Accademia di Belle Arti nel 1836 grazie al lascito del nipote del pittore, Carlo Londonio.
La mostra ha offerto l’occasione di investigare alla luce di fonti e documenti inediti tanto la clientela di Londonio, anche sotto il profilo sociale e culturale, quanto la sua fortuna ottocentesca, ricucendo gli itinerari seguiti dal patrimonio di olii e incisioni lasciato in eredità dall’artista, di cui faceva parte il nucleo pervenuto alla Braidense. 
Dal catalogo emerge uno spaccato di interesse interdisciplinare sulla committenza e il collezionismo milanesi della stagione illuminista, dove Londonio si rivela il fulcro di un vivace crocevia di mercanti, letterati e collezionisti del Grand Tour.
In calce al catalogo si pubblica la prima genealogia della famiglia Londonio, ricostruita interamente sulla base di ricerche d’archivio di prima mano.

NOTA
Il libro ha due autrici: Cristina Geddo e Simonetta Coppa. Sono qui pubblicati solo i capitoli scritti e firmati da Geddo :
- "Intorno a 'Fran.co Londonio pittore'. Nuovi documenti sulla famiglia, l’artista e la sua eredità" (pp. 33-43, figg. 23-32);
- "Tavola geneaologica Londonio" (pp. 45-47).


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WARNING: Under copyright law, as well as a fundamental norm of ethics, any use of this published paper – copy, citation, abridged version or any other form - is not authorised without mentioning adequately the source.

Au regard de l’essor timide de la taille-douce à Paris au début du xviie siècle, l’expérience italienne devint une étape nécessaire pour les graveurs qui voulaient apprendre ou perfectionner le métier. À la différence de ses collègues, Jérôme David (v. 1590/1600 – v. 1670) vécut longtemps en Italie, et non seulement à Rome: son séjour atypique lui permit collaborer avec plusieurs artistes italiens, qu’il interpréta de manière assidue. À son retour en France, en 1637, David continua à graver d’après des modèles italiens et ses estampes contribuèrent à la diffusion du goût, déjà très présent à Paris, pour l’art italien. Après la mort de François Langlois, marchand, éditeur important pour les artistes français ayant voyagé en Italie, David cesse de graver d’après les maîtres italiens, mais son attachement à la culture  gurative ultramontaine s’exprimera tout au long de sa carrière parisienne à travers les citations ponctuelles des grands maîtres qui l’in uencèrent particulièrement.

Di fronte all’inizio esitante dell’incisione su rame a Parigi ai primi del XVII secolo, l’esperienza italiana divenne tappa necessaria per gli incisori intenzionati a apprendere o perfezionare il mestiere. A differenza dei suoi colleghi, Jérôme David (v. 1590/1600 – v. 1670) visse a lungo in Italia, e non solamente a Roma : il suo soggiorno atipico gli permise di collaborare con numerosi artisti italiani, che interpretò in maniera assidua. Al suo rientro in Francia, nel 1637, David continuò a incidere i modelli italiani e le sue stampe contribuirono alla diffusione del gusto, già molto presente a Parigi, per l’arte italiana. Dopo la morte di François Langlois, mercante e importante editore per gli artisti francesi che viaggiarono in Italia, David smise di interpretare gli artisti italiani, ma il suo attaccamento alla cultura  figurativa oltremontana si esprimerà durante tutta la sua carriera parigina attraverso puntuali citazioni dei grandi maestri che lo in uenzarono particolarmente.

Ignazio Enrico Hugford (1703-1778) was a painter of English origin who was trained under Anton Domenico Gabbiani. As art dealer and connoisseur, he was among the most important collectors of works on paper in eighteenth-century Florence and had prolific and wide-ranging contacts throughout Europe. He was in close touch with Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri, and his correspondents also included Pierre Jean Mariette and Giovanni Gaetano Bottari. Among the over three thousand drawings bequeathed to his heirs and acquired in 1779 for the Uffizi by its director Giuseppe Pelli Bencivenni, one hundred and five sheets were attributed to artists of non-Italian schools. The attentive descriptions of Pelli’s inventory, the characteristic framing applied by Hugford and his inscriptions on some of the sheets have made it possible to identify almost all of these drawings, now in the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi. Research has also revealed Hugford’s talent as connoisseur, his interest in certain artists, and how Northern European drawings were regarded in the Florence of his time. This group includes sheets attributed to the Germans Dürer and Holbein, the Flemings Spranger and Lucas van Leyden, the French Callot and La Fage, and the Portuguese Francisco Vieira. Although many of these attributions are no longer acceptable, the identification of individual drawings has made it possible to confirm their authorship, and in some cases to suggest new attributions.

AVVERTENZA: Sulla base della normativa in materia di diritti d’autore, oltre che di una norma etica fondamentale, non è concesso utilizzare questo testo illustrato in qualsiasi forma – copia, citazione, riassunto etc. – senza menzionare la fonte.

WARNING: Under copyright law, as well as a fundamental norm of ethics, any use of this published paper – copy, citation, abridged version etc. – is not authorised without mentioning the source.

This essay examines and discusses a hitherto unpublished drawing reproducing a fresco in Siena, now lost but traditionally attributed to Simone Martini by sources ranging from Ghiberti to Della Valle. The drawing, from the collection of the art historian Jean-Baptiste Seroux d’Agincourt housed in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, prompts discussion regarding the painting’s iconography and style.

Bien que représentant un cas particulier, le Livre d'Echantillons Fol Est 489 constitue un bon exemple de la manière dont un recueil à destination d'un homme de l'art était composé au milieu du XVIIIe siècle. Éléments pratiques et didactiques y forment un vaste ensemble dans lequel le propriétaire pouvait puiser des idées et des formes, adaptables et combinables au gré de son imagination et des exigences de ses commanditaires. Il témoigne aussi du coût qu'un tel objet pouvait constituer, investissement assez onéreux pour un simple artisan. Il reflète, enfin, comment le goût de la période rocaille se diffusa dans les ateliers qui portèrent cette « mode » que Blondel fustige dans ses Cours d’Architecture.

in «Notizie di pittura raccolte dal Padre Resta». Il carteggio con Giuseppe Ghezzi e altri corrispondenti, a cura di Maria Rosa Pizzoni, Roma, UniversItalia, 2018, pp. 107-128.
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Su padre Sebastiano Resta e Leonardo da Vinci si veda anche: https://www.academia.edu/49350830/_Vero_lume_il_Leonardo_e_i_Leonardo_di_padre_Resta

Frank Auerbach recorded scenes in a sketchbook of the construction sites on Oxford Street in London in the decades following the devastation of World War II. Both the recto and verso of 'Oxford Street Building Site, 1957  - 59' are covered in notations that describe the colours and details he observed in person. The numbered red squaring grid was added later in the studio as a compositional tool whilst also easing the process of transfer to a painting surface roughly ten times larger. This talk explored Auerbach's methods of 'scaling up' in his 'London Building Sites' series.

Richard Waller, Fellow and Secretary of the Royal Society, is probably best remembered for editing Robert Hooke’s posthumously published works. Yet, Waller also created numerous drawings, paintings, and engravings for his own work and the Society’s publications. From precisely observed grasses to allegorical frontispieces, Waller’s images not only contained a diverse range of content, they are some of the most beautiful, colorful, and striking from the Society’s early years. This article argues that Waller played a distinctly important role in shaping the visual program of the Royal Society by virtue of his multiple functions as reliable administrator and translator, competent natural philosopher, and skilled image-maker. It analyzes Waller’s visual works in the context of his graphic training—in part influenced by his mother Mary More—and situates them within the context of English image-making traditions and Waller’s own natural philosophical interests. Examined as a functional whole, Waller’s career as a Fellow of the Royal Society emerges as an important case study in the fusion of visual and scientific practices in early-modern England.

Essay about the art work "Der Teufel von Berlin" (2001), a print edition by Simar Polke.
The essay is part of the catalogue "Die Vervielfältigung des Humors / La démultiplication de l’humour / The Multiplication of Humor. Die Editionen in der Sammlung / Les éditions dans la collection / The Editions in the Collection Axel Ciesielski", published on the
occasion of the exhibition in the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen (2013) and les Abattoirs - FRAC Midi-Pyrénées, Toulouse (2014).
The catalogue contains essays on specific editions by 15 authors and 1 longer essay on Polke and his editions.
Languages: German / French / English
Publisher: Snoeck, Cologne
Note: due to copyright no images are published in this pdf.

Fancy in the eighteenth century was part of a rich semantic network, connecting wit, whimsicality, erotic desire, spontaneity, deviation from norms and triviality. It was also a contentious term, signifying excess, oddness and irrationality, liable to offend taste, reason and morals. This chapter on fancy in drawing manuals is part of the Voltaire Foundation - Liverpool University Press - Oxford University Studies in The Enlightenment book Fancy in Eighteenth-Century European Visual Culture edited by Melissa Percival and Muriel Adrien

Visual and cultural analysis of Meiji shōnen kaiko 明治少年懐古 (Reminiscences of a Meiji youth, 1944), an illustrated book that nostalgically recalls Japan's late nineteenth and early twentieth century period of modernization. The book is in the Pulverer Collection of Japanese illustrated books of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC and is featured on The World of the Japanese Illustrated Book website. My commentary, along with a complete set of readable images of the book, may be found here: http://pulverer.si.edu/node/440/title/1.

This article provides, for the first time, an overview of all images (drawings
and prints) sent by the Dutch microscopist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) to the Royal Society during their fifty-year long correspondence. Analyses of the images and close reading of the letters have led to an identification of three periods in which Leeuwenhoek worked together with artists. The first period (1673–1689) is characterized by the work of several draughtsmen as well as Leeuwenhoek’s own improving attempts to depict his observations. In the second period (1692–1712) Leeuwenhoek worked together with one unknown draughtsman, while the work in the third period (1713–1723) can now be attributed to the young draughtsman Willem vander Wilt. This article also shows how Leeuwenhoek did not only rely on draughtsmen for the depiction of his own observations, but rather, how he worked together with them in his workshop to observe, confirm, and witness microscopic experiments, replicating the collaborative working methods of the Royal Society in Delft.

Carl Borromäus Ruthart (Gdańsk 1630–L’Aquila, after 1703), also known as Karl Ruthard, Carlo Ruttardo and Fra Andrea di Danzica is as fascinating as little known. He was most likely born in Gdańsk where he first learned to draw and paint, so the Gdańsk painting milieu of the ca. mid-17th century played a key factor in the development of his technique. His mature work was produced in a number of places in Europe, including Antwerp, Vienna, Venice, Rome and ultimately in L’Aquila. His most typical motifs were dramatic hunting scenes, and later religious scenes always in the midst of animals and objects. Especially the begin- nings of his career remain unknown.
Ruthart’s continuously popular animal scenes are kept in and purchased for museums and private collections on several con- tinents. The painter’s sacred works can be mainly found in the churches and museum collections of Rome and L’Aquila. There are also sketches of animals in various techniques and prints that are testament to Ruthart’s interest in studies. It is they that we will mainly use to follow the directions in which Ruthart looked for his models in his early career. Young Carl Borromäus’s interest in animal painting was surely influenced by certain particular features of Gdańsk culture. The 16th-century décor of Artus Court already shows an interest in hunting themes. Ruthart was influenced by such artists as Daniel Schultz, Samuel Niedenthal and Frans Snyders. A collection of Niedenthal’s drawings from Erlangen is lost but the exceptionally large collection of the artist’s work preserved at the Kupferstich-Kabinett (Print Collection) in Dresden. The chronology of Ruthart’s both early and later work is very difficult to determine because he very rarely signed them. His earliest signed work is a quick sketch from the National Museum in Gdańsk. A pen and wash drawing, it shows a dog at rest and is signed “Carl Ruthart/ geschehn[?] in Venetia,/ Den 22 Aug: 1655”. Four similar drawings by Ruthart, depicting single animals at the graphic art collection in Munich and are none-too-widely- known. The first sketch depicts a Sleeping Pig. It is a black chalk drawing on 24.1 × 39 cm blue paper. The next one made in the same technique on cream-coloured paper (14.1 × 18.5 cm), features a boar in profile. The other two, depicting a Calf and a Doe in motion are drawn in black and washed with white chalk. The last drawing is inscribed: „A. Rutharts del” at the bottom and „812” underneath it, written with bistre. ust like the Gdańsk drawing, the Munich sketches focus on the detail and are more toned down than his later work. In these studies of poses, Ruthart shows himself to be an astute observer, focused on depicting a specific animal at rest or posing it in motion. The similarities between both artists’ preparatory sketches and the very interest in the subject do not seem to be accidental. Stags, lions, leopards and all kinds of birds in Niedenthal’s drawings and paintings appear in similar ways in Ruthart’s paintings. Ruthart produced animal “portraits” similar to Niedenthal’s with oil on paper or canvas, for example the Wild Boar and Wolf from the former collection of the Marchesi Strozzi in Florence. A so-far record-breaking sum of €659,000 was paid in 2007 for a painting signed and dated by Ruthart depicting Adam Naming the Animals which, although painted in 1686, has a clear connection to the work of the Gdańsk painters’ milieu of the mid- 17th century. In fact, the subject repeats the iconography of the earlier mentioned painting of the same title, albeit in a somewhat different manner. The animal world fascinated Ruthart. He certainly gained the ability to carefully study various species of birds, animals and amphibians at the workshop of his master, most likely Niedenthal. His travels and the opportunity to see the work of Netherlandish and Italian painters developed him greatly, while his popularity with customers made him use his skills to create many works meant primarily for palace interiors.

Although his celebrated pupils, Guido Reni, Francesco Albani and Domenichino, flourished in the Eternal City, during his lifetime the Antwerp-born painter and draughtsman Denys Calvaert (c.1540–1619) probably visited Rome only once, between 1573 and 1576. While Calvaert’s sojourn in Rome is recorded in documents and early sources, the evidence of his artistic activity is rather meagre, which has led to some misinter- pretations and chronological confusions. The discovery of a group of drawings that can be confidently attributed to Calvaert and precisely dated to his years in Rome adds visual substance to documenting the artist’s presence in the city, which was crucial for his training as a draughtsman and his future development as an artist.

Analysis of a head study drawing by Rubens, relating it to similar drawings, and sheets of similar drawings with images of existing trony oil paintings by Rubens and Van Dyck, and offering a possible function for the drawings as a memory exercise.

The quincentenary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death has been marked by two exhibitions exploring the life and work of his master, one at Palazzo Strozzi and the Bargello in Florence and the other at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. These searching explorations of an enigmatic artist and his influential workshop are notably different in scope and structure.

In this article it will be shown that the so-called Berlin Sketchbook, associated with the workshop of Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (ca. 1460 - 1533), can be firmly attributed to his grandson, printmaker and cartographer Cornelis Anthonisz (1500/05 - 1558). For Anthonisz., this little booklet served as a didactic and creative drawing book in which he
recorded motifs with seeming nonchalance; his sketchbook appears to have been an archive of images and visual test bed in one.