DOMENICO DEL BARBIERI (after Michelangelo) Group from the Last Judgment, Angels Carrying the Column of the Flagellation and the Sponge and Ladder of the Crucifixion.
Engraving, circa 1545. 193x350 mm; 7 3/4x13 3/4 inches. Small crowned coat-of-arms with a fleur-de-lys watermark. A very good impression of this extremely scarce, early engraving.
We have found only one other impression at auction in the past 30 years.
Barbieri (circa 1506-1565), called Domenico Fiorentino, was born in Florence and moved to France in the 1530s. He settled in Troyes, west of Paris and Fontainebleu, and became a successful sculptor. He joined the studio of Italian artists who worked with Primaticcio and Rosso Fiorentino at Fontainebleau and Meudon, where he practiced both stucco work and fresco.
Barbieri based this engraving on the upper right lunette section of Michelangelo's Last Judgment fresco, in the Sistine Chapel, Rome, completed in 1541. Bartsch 3; Zerner 4.
