CRISTOFANO DI MICHELE MARTINI, IL ROBETTA Adoration of the Magi<>.
Engraving, circa 1496-1500. 300x280 mm; 11 7/8x11 inches. The letter M with a star in a shield watermark. With thread margins or trimmed on the plate mark. A superb, early impression of this scarce print.
According to Levenson, this print is primarily based on Filippino Lippi's painting of the same subject which dates from 1496 and is now in the Uffizi, Florence. However, as Levenson points out, Robetta also adopted passages from other prints of his day. The hat above his signature, for instance, is copied from Schongauer's Adoration of the Magi<> (Lehrs 6), as are the ehads of the ox and ass to the viewer's right of the Virgin and Child. Meanwhile, the general delineation of the landscape derives from prints by Dürer and the sky is based on his Virgin and Child with the Monkey<> (Bartsch 42, see lot in the current auction) and Sea Monster<> (Bartsch 71). The original copper plate for the current lot is now in the British Museum and many extant impressions were printed during the 19th-century; early printings such as this one are extremely scarce. Hind 10; Levenson/Oberhuber/Sheehan, Early Italian Engravings from the National Gallery of Art<>, Washington, DC, 1973, p. 296, no. 118.
