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Lot Essay
Bartsch records only six impressions of this print in public collections and none have appeared at auction within the last thirty years.
The composition of this print is related to Barbari's painting of The Virgin and Child with Saints John the Baptist and Anthony Abbot (Paris, Louvre), which is generally dated around 1500-05. On stylistic grounds however Levenson places the print at the beginnig of the artist's late period, around 1508 or later.
Although his name suggests that he came from Northern Europe - and his family might well have - Jacopo de' Barbari himself was undoubtedly Italian, probably Venetian. He was however one of the first great artists of the Italian Renaissance who travelled to the North to find patrons and work. This was at a time when the migration of artistic talent usually went in the opposite direction, from Germany and the Netherlands to Italy. Jacopo's art and life is hence a complicated case of exchanges and influences. Dürer may have met Jacopo already in Venice around 1494-95, or Jacopo may have met Dürer in Nuremberg when he moved there in 1500 - or perhaps both. In any case, both lived in the same cities at the same times and certainly knew and admired each others works. Both influenced each other and some of their prints show uncanny similarities, but while Dürer was a highly prolific printmaker and publisher, de'Barbari's prints - signed with a caduceus - were probably only printed in small numbers and are exceedingly rare. Yet fine impressions reveal him as one of the finest and most original printmakers of his time.
The composition of this print is related to Barbari's painting of The Virgin and Child with Saints John the Baptist and Anthony Abbot (Paris, Louvre), which is generally dated around 1500-05. On stylistic grounds however Levenson places the print at the beginnig of the artist's late period, around 1508 or later.
Although his name suggests that he came from Northern Europe - and his family might well have - Jacopo de' Barbari himself was undoubtedly Italian, probably Venetian. He was however one of the first great artists of the Italian Renaissance who travelled to the North to find patrons and work. This was at a time when the migration of artistic talent usually went in the opposite direction, from Germany and the Netherlands to Italy. Jacopo's art and life is hence a complicated case of exchanges and influences. Dürer may have met Jacopo already in Venice around 1494-95, or Jacopo may have met Dürer in Nuremberg when he moved there in 1500 - or perhaps both. In any case, both lived in the same cities at the same times and certainly knew and admired each others works. Both influenced each other and some of their prints show uncanny similarities, but while Dürer was a highly prolific printmaker and publisher, de'Barbari's prints - signed with a caduceus - were probably only printed in small numbers and are exceedingly rare. Yet fine impressions reveal him as one of the finest and most original printmakers of his time.