?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
ANNIBALE CARRACCI Pietà ("Christ of Caprarola").
Etching, engraving and drypoint, 1597. 123x160 mm; 5x6 3/8 inches, thread margins. Sixth state (of 7), with the address of Van Aelst. A superb impression of this extremely scarce etching.
We have found only 5 other impressions at auction in the past 30 years.
With--An etching of the same subject in reverse by an unknown printmaker.
According to Bohlin, "This etching is probably the most moving of all Annibale's prints, partially due to a development of the artist's etching technique . . . The emotionally charged atmosphere is aided by the movement of the sky in the background, suggesting the coming storm after Christ's death. The technical cause of these vertical lines in the sky is the breakdown of the etching ground used by the artist."
The name Caprarola in the plate lower left indicates the town of the same name outside of Rome, where Carracci (1560-1609) likely visited around 1597 (it is the only print by Carracci with the notation of the place of execution). He would have gone to Caprarola around this time to visit the Villa Farnese to study the frescoes by Taddeo Zuccaro (1529-1566) of the feats of the Farnese family in the Sala dei Fatti Farnesiani in preparation for his ceiling decoration of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, 1597-1608. It was commissioned by Cardinal Odoardo Farnese and initially intended as a fresco series of the exploits of Alessandro Farnese, but ultimately changed to its final theme of the loves of the gods. Bartsch 4; Bohlin 18.
