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Lot Essay
The inscription at the lower left of this large and very ambitious print leaves little doubt that the composition goes back to or was associated with the great Florentine sculptor Baccio Bandinelli.
The identity of the engraver and the question of original or copy however remains a matter of some confusion. The present, fine and early impression with Lafrery’s address was clearly printed from the same plate as the impression in the Metropolitan Museum (accession no. 49.97.618), there attributed to Marco Dente da Ravenna. In Bartsch however, an apparently worn impression from the same plate and with Lafrery’s address, in Vienna, is described as a copy after Marco Dente by Nicolas Beatrizet. Another version, deceptively similar yet with slight differences in the balustrade above at left and right, is recorded in Bartsch once as the original (vol. 26, no. 21), once as a retouched copy (vol. 29, no. 14 II).
The identity of the engraver and the question of original or copy however remains a matter of some confusion. The present, fine and early impression with Lafrery’s address was clearly printed from the same plate as the impression in the Metropolitan Museum (accession no. 49.97.618), there attributed to Marco Dente da Ravenna. In Bartsch however, an apparently worn impression from the same plate and with Lafrery’s address, in Vienna, is described as a copy after Marco Dente by Nicolas Beatrizet. Another version, deceptively similar yet with slight differences in the balustrade above at left and right, is recorded in Bartsch once as the original (vol. 26, no. 21), once as a retouched copy (vol. 29, no. 14 II).