ANONYMOUS FLORENTINE, XV CENTURY. WILD ANIMALS HUNTING
AND FIGHTING
Size of the original engraving, 10⅛ × 14¾ inches
In the British Museum
The Picture-Chronicle is a book of drawings illustrating the History of the World, and evidently proceeds from the hand and workshop of a Florentine goldsmith-engraver of about 1460. It was acquired by the British Museum from Mr. Ruskin in 1888. The drawings are in pen and ink and wash, often reinforced with open pen-shading like that imitated later by the Broad Manner engravers. At its best the work has the true early Renaissance combination of archaic strength with attractive naiveté—the ornamental detail carried out with a masterly power of pen, and with the patient delight of one who is by instinct and training above all things a jeweler.
Finiguerra’s fame as the leading worker in niello was firmly established by 1450; and although we cannot assign certainly any engraving by him to a date earlier than 1460, there is a group of Florentine primitives which may be placed between the years 1450 and 1460, thus antedating Finiguerra’s first plate by about ten years. The most beautiful of these early prints in conception, and the purest in execution, is the Profile Portrait of a Lady, a single impression of which has come down to us and is now in Berlin. In style it recalls the paintings of Piero della Francesca, Verrocchio, Uccello, or Pollaiuolo, and although it would be unwise to attribute it to any known master, there is a sensitive quality in the drawing, and a restraint, which differentiates it from any other print of this period.
Among the engravings which may be by Finiguerra himself, one of the most interesting is the plate of Wild Animals Hunting and Fighting, wherein we see a number of motives taken directly from the Picture-Chronicle—motives which reappear again and again in works undoubtedly by other hands. This print, as also the Encounter of a Hunting Party with a Family of Wild Folk, is unique. In the last-named we see a number of motives repeated from the Wild Animals Hunting and Fighting: such as the boar being pulled down by two hounds, the hound chasing a hare, in the upper right corner; and the dog, slightly to the left, devouring the entrails of yet another hare.
The Road to Calvary and the Crucifixion is a far more elaborate and important composition, and in this engraving we see that which is especially noteworthy in the Judgment Hall of Pilate—the largest and most important of all the Fine Manner prints—the goldsmith’s love of ornament. In the Judgment Hall of Pilate the head-dresses, and especially the armor, are highly elaborate, while the architecture itself is overlaid with ornate decoration directly drawn from the Picture-Chronicle. In the only known impression the plate seems to have been re-worked, in the Broad Manner, by a later hand.
ANONYMOUS FLORENTINE, XV CENTURY. TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION OF BACCHUS
AND ARIADNE
Size of the original engraving, 8⅛ × 22 inches
In the British Museum
(If supported click figure to enlarge.)