ZOAN ANDREA (?). FOUR WOMEN DANCING
Size of the original engraving, 8⅞ × 13 inches
In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
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GIOVANNI ANTONIO DA BRESCIA. HOLY FAMILY WITH
SAINTS ELIZABETH AND JOHN
Size of original engraving, 11⅞ × 10⅛ inches
In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Adoration of the Magi, which for some reason likewise remained unfinished, is taken directly from the central portion of the triptych in the Uffizi. The engraving, aside from its intrinsic beauty, is of especial interest as affording an example of the method adopted by Mantegna and his School. The structural lines are deeply incised, in many cases by repeated strokes of the graver. The diagonal shading is then added and the plate carried forward and completed, bit by bit. This engraving, at one time accounted an original work by the master himself, has received of recent years more than its merited share of harsh criticism. It obviously falls far short, in beauty, of Mantegna’s painting; but, for all that, it preserves many of the essential qualities of its immediate original, and one cannot but admire the manner in which an engraver, certainly not of the first rank, has captured the spirit of humility and adoration, eloquent in every line of the king at the left, humbly bending to receive the benediction of the Christ Child.
By an engraver of the Mantegna School, perhaps Zoan Andrea, working in Mantegna’s manner and after his design for the Parnassus in the Louvre, is Four Women Dancing—one of the most charming and graceful prints of the period. It differs in many particulars from the painting (assigned to the year 1497) and almost certainly translates Mantegna’s drawing, rather than the painting itself.
To Giovanni Antonio da Brescia, of whose life, apart from what we may learn from a study of his work, we know substantially nothing, may be attributed the Holy Family with Saints Elizabeth and John, based upon a design by Mantegna, of about 1500, and probably engraved at a date prior to Mantegna’s death, September 13, 1506. At a later period, Giovanni came under the influence of Marcantonio Raimondi, whose style he imperfectly assimilated.
In the British Museum there is a unique impression of a Profile Bust of a Young Woman, which has been ascribed, with some show of reason, to Leonardo da Vinci. Its intrinsic beauty might lend some color to this attribution, were it not that, even in its re-worked condition, the texture and flow of the young woman’s abundant tresses, the treatment of the flowing ribbons, and the delicate shading in the face and upon the garment, betray the hand of the trained engraver.
Nicoletto Rosex da Modena was working from about 1490 to 1515. He engraved almost a hundred plates, the majority of them being presumably from his own designs, though in the Adoration of the Shepherds the influence of Schongauer is markedly apparent, and in Fortune and St. Sebastian the inspiration of Mantegna is clearly to be seen.