ANDREA MANTEGNA The Entombment . Engraving printed in dark brown on cream laid paper, circa 1465-70. 320x462 mm; 12 5/8x18 1/4 inches. Fourth state (of 4). Trimmed on the plate mark, several small restored edge losses, mainly in blank areas. A very good impression of this extremely scarce, early print, with all the lines printed clearly and with little to no signs of wear. We locate 24 impressions in North American museums and have found only several other impressions at auction in the past 20 years. According to Levenson, et als., this engraving borrows elements from Mantegna's Crucifixion , panel, 1457-59, the predella of the S. Zeno altarpiece. Mantegna also evidently relied on motifs from classical sarcophagus reliefs, notably the monumentality of the figures and the frieze-like composition as a whole. His rendering of the dead Christ, who is supported on a sort of hammock by a sheet held by outwardly leaning Nicodemus and Joseph of Aramathea, and the unconscious Virgin surrounded by her attendants are uncommon pictorial elements in 15th-century Italian art. Both of these uncommon elements, however, appeared earlier in a Florentine painting of the Entombment now in the National Gallery, Washington, DC, which is attributed to Fra Angelico or Filippo Lippi That Mantegna adopted these elements in this engraving supports the claim that he visited Florence in the mid-1460s, before executing the print, and that he might also have learned printmaking there as well. Bartsch 13; Hind 2; Levenson, et als. Early Italian Engravings from the National Gallery of Art , Washington, DC, 1973, no. 70.
ANDREA MANTEGNA The Entombment . Engraving printed in dark brown on cream laid paper, circa 1465-70. 320x462 mm; 12 5/8x18 1/4 inches. Fourth state (of 4). Trimmed on the plate mark, several small restored edge losses, mainly in blank areas. A very good impression of this extremely scarce, early print, with all the lines printed clearly and with little to no signs of wear. We locate 24 impressions in North American museums and have found only several other impressions at auction in the past 20 years. According to Levenson, et als., this engraving borrows elements from Mantegna's Crucifixion , panel, 1457-59, the predella of the S. Zeno altarpiece. Mantegna also evidently relied on motifs from classical sarcophagus reliefs, notably the monumentality of the figures and the frieze-like composition as a whole. His rendering of the dead Christ, who is supported on a sort of hammock by a sheet held by outwardly leaning Nicodemus and Joseph of Aramathea, and the unconscious Virgin surrounded by her attendants are uncommon pictorial elements in 15th-century Italian art. Both of these uncommon elements, however, appeared earlier in a Florentine painting of the Entombment now in the National Gallery, Washington, DC, which is attributed to Fra Angelico or Filippo Lippi That Mantegna adopted these elements in this engraving supports the claim that he visited Florence in the mid-1460s, before executing the print, and that he might also have learned printmaking there as well. Bartsch 13; Hind 2; Levenson, et als. Early Italian Engravings from the National Gallery of Art , Washington, DC, 1973, no. 70.
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
