?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 15,000 - $ 20,000
FEDERICO BAROCCI The Annunciation.
Etching and engraving, circa 1585. 435x313 mm; 17 1/8x12 3/8 inches. Fleur-de-lys in a circle watermark. Ex-collection P & D Colnaghi & Co., London; and Eliot Hodgkin, London.
Exhibited P & D Colnaghi & Co., London, "Italian Prints of the 16th Century," 1969; Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, London, "Eliot Hodgkin, Painter & Collector," 1990, page 30, catalogue number 133 (illustrated).
A brilliant, early, and richly-inked Renaissance impression, before any of the later reowrking of the plate, with strong contrasts, no sign of wear and all the details distinct.
This is Barocci's (circa 1535-1612) most famous print, made after his painting of the same subject completed between 1582 and 1584 for his major patron, the Duke of Urbino (the painting is now at the Vatican, Rome). The mid-15th-century Palazzo Ducale, the Duke of Urbino's castle, is visible through the window in the background. This print was published by the artist himself and he may have been encouraged to produce the print by the Duke of Urbino in order to disseminate images of, and thereby popularize, the painting incorporating the Duke's palazzo into one of the most important moments in scripture.
According to Reed, the print is, "full of virtuoso handling of light, odeling and texture, the tender, memorable composition and skillful execution were emulated by succeeding generations of artists and printmakers," (Italian Etchers of the Renaissance & Baroque, Boston, 1989, p. 98). Bartsch 1.
