?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000
MASTER OF THE E-SERIES TAROCCHI Temperance.
Engraving, circa 1465. 183x102 mm; 7 1/4x4 inches. Ex-collection Holtkott, ink stamp verso (not in Lugt). Several expertly-repaired tears, visible mainly on the verso. A good impression of this extremely scarce, early engraving.
We have not found another impression at auction in the past 20 years.
From a set of 50 so-called Tarocchi cards, these are neither playing cards nor fortune telling cards but likely cards used for educating upper-class children. The set includes 10 subjects showing the Hierarchy of Man, the 9 Muses and Apollo, the 7 Liberal Arts, the 3 Genia of Light and 10 cards for the Sun, Moon and 5 traditional Planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn), the fixed stars, the Primum Mobile and Prima Causa (God).
This card shows an allegorical figure exercising temperance, mixing wine with water. The meaning of the ermine seeing its reflection in the mirror has not yet been interpreted.
The titles of some of the cards are written in Ferraran or Venetian dialect, providing a geographical base for the unknown, early engraver of these prints. They are generally not considered the work of Andrea Mantegna or Baccio Baldini, as supposed by earlier print historians. Illustrated Bartsch 51-A.
