Vincenzo Tamagni, Student of Raphael (Italian, 1492 – c. 1516)

Vincenzo Tamagni [also known as: Vincenzo De San Gremignano – Student of Raphael] (Italian, 1492 – c. 1516), The Angel of the Annunciation, study on paper,  216mm x 144mm

Vincenzo Tamagni was an Italian Renaissance painter born in San Gimignano. He became an apprentice first with il Sodoma at Monte Oliveto Maggiore, and then worked under Raphael in the Vatican Palace in Rome. Tamagni was sufficiently skilled that distinguishing between his hands and that of Raphael is still difficult. There is no doubt that Tamagni assisted Raphael with many of the frescoes, and perhaps completed many of Raphael’s designs.

Tamagni painted primarily in the towns surrounding Siena. His earliest frescoes are found in Montalcino, a small town near Siena. In San Gimignano he painted altarpieces for San Girolamo, a Renaissance style church just outside of the old walled city of Volterra. His paintings can also be found in the Basilica of SantAgostino in Rome, one of the first Roman churches built during the Renaissance. In conjunction with Lo Spagna, his frescoes also decorated Santa Maria d’Arrone in Umbria

Tamagni is featured in Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, and is referred to as Vincenzo da San Gimignano.

Luigi Sabatelli (Florence 1772 – Milan 1850), Roman Warrior with Javelin, preliminary drawing

Luigi was an Italian painter, printmaker and draughtsman. After training in Florence in the Neoclassical tradition, he won a scholarship to study in Rome. From 1789 to 1794, the young artist lived and studied in Rome under the patronage of Tommaso Puccini, an intellectual and connoisseur who later became Director of the Gallerie Fiorentine. 

Sabatelli was first attracted to the rigor of François-Guillaume Ménageot, who taught at the Académie de France, but later became interested in a more contemporary classicism, practiced by the followers of David, such as François-Xavier Fabre.

Sabatelli returned to Florence in 1795 and began to introduce into his painting elements borrowed from Antoine-Jean Gros. Sabatelli’s paintings of the 1790s and early 1800s, for example the Florentine Plaque (1801), the Plague Victims of Jaffa and the large-scale battles commissioned by Tommaso Puccini, are closely related to the Napoleonic battle scenes of Gros and Anne-Louis Girodet.

In 1808, at the age of 35, he was appointed the Chair of Painting at The Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera (Academy of Fine Arts of Brera), where he remained for 40 years.

Between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, Sabatelli worked on a group of etchings of the Via Crucis, which became the most widely circulated series in Tuscany.

His first important work in oils was the large picture representing the Meeting of David and Abigail, which now hangs opposite Benvenuti’s Judith in the Arezzo Cathedral. At this time, he established himself as one of the key figures in the revival of Florentine painting. For inspiration he turned to literature, dwelling particularly on characters from Dante. In order to expand his repertory, he also drew on Shakespeare and Milton, whose works were becoming increasingly popular.

His most famous work, made in Florence during 1820-25, is in the Hall of the Iliad at the Pitti Palace (the first room of the Picture Gallery), consisting of eight lunettes and a large circular medallion illustrating scenes from the Homeric poems. He is also know for the decoration of Niccolò Puccini’s villa in Pistoia (1840) and paintings of Astronomy and Mathematics (1841) for the Tribuna in the Palazzo della Specola (now the Museo Zoologico ‘la Specola’) in Florence.

His sons, Giuseppe (1813–1843) and Francesco Sabatelli (1801–1829), were also painters and professors of art in Florence; both died young. Sabatelli’s pupils included Carlo Arienti, Giuseppe Sogni, Luigi Pedrazzi, Giuseppe Penuti, Michelangelo Fumagalli, Giacomo Marinez, Girolamo Daverio Luzzi, and Giulio Arrivabene.

SOURCE: SPHINX FINE ART – http://www.sphinxfineart.com

Carlo Caliari (Italian, 1570–1596), Study for The Coronation of Hebe, black ink and grey wash heightened with white on blue paper, 319mm x 314mm

[Preparatory drawing for a ceiling preserved in the Veronese Room in the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston – attributed to Paolo Veronese and workshop]

Carlo Caliari (1570–1596), also known as Carletto, was the youngest son of Paolo Caliari, better known as Paolo Veronese (15281588), one of the most prolific and successful painters of the Italian late Renaissance. His father was born in Verona, hence the name Veronese, but established himself in Venice, where he opened a family workshop. In addition to training his sons Carlo and Gabriele, he worked with his brother, Benedetto Caliari (1538 – 1598). To complete many of his major commissions, Veronese relied on a team of skilled assistants – often members of his family. Several works that Veronese left unfinished in death where completed by Carlo, Gabriele and Benedetto.

At a very early age Carlo Caliari showed an ability for imitating his father’s works. As one of the most talented members of his father’s workshop, Carlo undoubtedly helped to execute many works that are attributed to his father. His name is attached to several large pictures of banquets in Veronese’s style. Veronese desired to see his son develop his own style, and sent Carlo to work in the studio of the Bassano family. Unfortunately his own personal style did not have time to fully develop, as he died at age twenty-six.

Carlo collaborated with his brother, Gabriele, on two large paintings on the doors of the Palazzo Ducale. One of his best works is the St. Augustine Academy of Venice.  A number of Carlo Caliari’s works are on display at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, including The Expulsion from Earthy Paradise (1586), Adam’s Family, Creation of Eve, and Original Sin.

Another young painter from Verona, Alessandro Turchi (1578 – 1649), sometimes called Alessandro Veronese, is said to have trained and worked under Carlo Caliari.

For more information see:

Uffizi Gallery – http://www.virtualuffizi.com/carlo-caliari.html

http://www.gardnermuseum.org/explore/#/3rd_floor/veronese_room/the_coronation_of_hebe

The Coronation of Hebe – 1580s

Coronation of Hebe
Hebe, personification of the beauty of youth, is crowned with flowers by a little cupid and handed a cup by Mercury. Other gods include Jupiter and Juno (under the eagle in the top left corner), Venus (flaunting herself to their left), Diana (next to Mercury), Minerva and armoured Mars (towards the centre of the canvas), Neptune (with his trident at the right edge) and Hercules (with his club towards the bottom). From the ceiling of a room in the Palazzo Della Torre at Udine. Sold in 1692, and taken to the house of Pietro Businello alla Croce at Venice. Later, probably in the early nineteenth century, it entered the Manfrin Gallery, from which it was sold in 1896. Bought by Mrs Gardner in 1899 from a Parisian dealer. It has been set into a gilded and painted ceiling in the ‘Veronese Room’ at Fenway Court. Late (probably 1580s). A thorough restoration, carried out in situ, was completed in 2001.

Carlo Caliari (Italian, 1570–1596), Study for The Coronation of Hebe, black ink, 312mm x 299mm

[Preparatory drawing for a ceiling preserved in the Veronese Room in the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston – attributed to Paolo Veronese and workshop]

Carlo Caliari (1570–1596), also known as Carletto, was the youngest son of Paolo Caliari, better known as Paolo Veronese (15281588), one of the most prolific and successful painters of the Italian late Renaissance. Carlo’s father was born in Verona, hence the name Veronese, but established himself in Venice, where he opened a family workshop. In addition to training his sons Carlo and Gabriele, he worked with his brother, Benedetto Caliari (1538 – 1598). To complete many of his major commissions, Veronese relied on a team of skilled assistants – often members of his family. Several works that Veronese left unfinished in death where completed by Carlo, Gabriele and Benedetto.

At a very early age Carlo Caliari showed an ability for imitating his father’s works. As one of the most talented members of his father’s workshop, Carlo undoubtedly helped to execute many works that are attributed to his father. His name is attached to several large pictures of banquets in Veronese’s style. Veronese desired to see his son develop his own style, and sent Carlo to work in the studio of the Bassano family. Unfortunately his own personal style did not have time to fully develop, as he died at age twenty-six.

Carlo collaborated with his brother, Gabriele, on two large paintings on the doors of the Palazzo Ducale. One of his best works is the St. Augustine Academy of Venice.  A number of Carlo Caliari’s works are on display at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, including The Expulsion from Earthy Paradise (1586), Adam’s Family, Creation of Eve, and Original Sin.

Another young painter from Verona, Alessandro Turchi (1578 – 1649), sometimes called Alessandro Veronese, is said to have trained and worked under Carlo Caliari.

For more information see:

Uffizi Gallery – http://www.virtualuffizi.com/carlo-caliari.html

http://www.gardnermuseum.org/explore/#/3rd_floor/veronese_room/the_coronation_of_hebe

The Coronation of Hebe – 1580s

Coronation of Hebe
Hebe, personification of the beauty of youth, is crowned with flowers by a little cupid and handed a cup by Mercury. Other gods include Jupiter and Juno (under the eagle in the top left corner), Venus (flaunting herself to their left), Diana (next to Mercury), Minerva and armoured Mars (towards the centre of the canvas), Neptune (with his trident at the right edge) and Hercules (with his club towards the bottom). From the ceiling of a room in the Palazzo Della Torre at Udine. Sold in 1692, and taken to the house of Pietro Businello alla Croce at Venice. Later, probably in the early nineteenth century, it entered the Manfrin Gallery, from which it was sold in 1896. Bought by Mrs Gardner in 1899 from a Parisian dealer. It has been set into a gilded and painted ceiling in the ‘Veronese Room’ at Fenway Court. Late (probably 1580s). A thorough restoration, carried out in situ, was completed in 2001.

Jean-Jacques Lagrenée (French, 1739-1821), A Funeral Altar – Volusia Abascantia, black ink with brown wash over black chalk, on paper, 295mm X 215mm

Jean-Jacques Lagrenée, aka Lagrenée the Younger, was a French Neoclassical history painter and engraver, and younger brother of the successful artist, Louis Jean François Lagrenée, with whom he trained. After the younger Lagrenée failed at the Prix de Rome in 1760, he followed his older brother to St Petersburg, Russia, where the elder had been appointed director of the Academy. The two brothers returned to Paris in 1762, and in 1763, Jean-Jaques moved to Italy to attend the French Academy in Rome. For five years, between 1763 and 1768, Jean-Jacques Lagrenée immersed himself in the French Academy and was strongly influenced by the emerging Neoclassical art movement. Back in Paris by 1769, he exhibited frequently at the Salon, showing both paintings and drawings. His drawings were highly-coveted by eighteenth-century collectors.

Jean-Jacques Lagrenée became an Associate of the French Academy in 1769, and a full Academician in 1775; his reception piece was Winter, a ceiling for Apollo’s Gallery in the Louvre. It was a great honor to be selected to aid in the decoration of Louvre ceiling.

In 1776, Jean-Jacques Lagrenée was appointed Adjunct-Professor and made a Full-Professor in 1781. Between 1785 and 1800, he ruled the artistic department of the powerful Manufacture de Sèvres and designed many neoclassical objects (furniture and dishes). A process for producing designs in marble is credited to Jean-Jacques Lagrenée.

source:

Dictionary of Painters and Engravers: Biographical and Critical, Volume 2, by Michael Bryan

Eighteenth-century French Drawings in New York Collections, by Perrin Stein

http://www.the-athenaeum.org/people/detail.php?id=6130

Jean-Jacques Lagrenée (French, 1739-1821), Figure Studies, black ink heightened with white and grey wash, on paper, 295mm X 215mm

Jean-Jacques Lagrenée, aka Lagrenée the Younger, was a French Neoclassical history painter and engraver, and younger brother of the successful artist, Louis Jean François Lagrenée, with whom he trained. After the younger Lagrenée failed at the Prix de Rome in 1760, he followed his older brother to St Petersburg, Russia, where the elder had been appointed director of the Academy. The two brothers returned to Paris in 1762, and in 1763, Jean-Jaques moved to Italy to attend the French Academy in Rome. For five years, between 1763 and 1768, Jean-Jacques Lagrenée immersed himself in the French Academy and was strongly influenced by the emerging Neoclassical art movement. Back in Paris by 1769, he exhibited frequently at the Salon, showing both paintings and drawings. His drawings were highly-coveted by eighteenth-century collectors.

Jean-Jacques Lagrenée became an Associate of the French Academy in 1769, and a full Academician in 1775; his reception piece was Winter, a ceiling for Apollo’s Gallery in the Louvre. It was a great honor to be selected to aid in the decoration of Louvre ceiling.

In 1776, Jean-Jacques Lagrenée was appointed Adjunct-Professor and made a Full-Professor in 1781. Between 1785 and 1800, he ruled the artistic department of the powerful Manufacture de Sèvres and designed many neoclassical objects (furniture and dishes). A process for producing designs in marble is credited to Jean-Jacques Lagrenée.

source:

Eighteenth-century French Drawings in New York Collections, by Perrin Stein

http://www.the-athenaeum.org/people/detail.php?id=6130

Jan (Johannes) Luyken (Luiken), (Dutch, 1649-1712), A Battle – Inscribed 111.1258, brown ink on paper, 107mm x 151mm

Jan (Johannes) Luyken (Luiken) was a seventeenth-century Dutch poet, illustrator and engraver. He was born in Amsterdam in 1649 and learned engraving from his father and teacher Caspar (Kaspar) Luyken. He married at nineteen and had several children. One of his children, Caspar (Kasparusor or Caspaares) Luyken (Luiken), also became a renowned engraver.  When he was 26 years old, Jan Luyken had a religious experience, which inspired him to lead a robust life as a Baptist and write moralistic poetry; his first book of poetry was called Duytse lyre (1671).

He made his name as an ingenious etcher in 1680, with 24 illustrations in Oorsprongk, a popular history book by the renowned Dutch historian Pieter Bor. Jan Luyken is also known for his moralistic prints and etchings about the suffering of the Christian martyrs. He illustrated the 1685 edition of the Martyrs Mirror, an account of martyrs from the 1st — 16th century, written by Thieleman Van Braght, with 104 copper etchings. These had been considered lost, but were found in 1924. A collection of these prints appears on this website: http://cargocollective.com/Kunstkabinett/Religious-Persecutions-by-Jan-Luyken

Jan Luyken and his son Caspar also published Het Menselyk Bedryf (“The Book of Trades”) in 1694, which contains engravings of seventeenth-century trades; each engraving is accompanied by a short verse, presumably describing the particular trade.

His works can be found at the Amsterdam Museum and the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, commonly called Rijksmuseum, the largest and most important national museum of the Netherlands.

Luiken Engravings on Silver Medals can be found on: 24carat.co.uk/dutchmedallionsjohannescaspaaresluiken.html

source: http://cargocollective.com/Kunstkabinett/Religious-Persecutions-by-Jan-Luyken and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Luyken

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798-1863), Study of Prancing Horses, pen and India ink, 8.25″ x 11.5″

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix, most commonly referred to as Eugène Delacroix, is considered the leader of the French Romantic School. Taking inspiration from Peter Paul Rubens and the Venetian Renaissance artists, he emphasized color and movement, rather than clarity of outline and Neoclassic perfectionism. Delacroix’s use of expressive brushstrokes and vivid colors profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists.

Delacroix was an extremely prolific artist, producing over 9,000 paintings, watercolors, pastels and drawings during his lifetime, many of which were inspired by the works of Shakespeare, Goethe, and Byron. His most widely known piece is Liberty Leading the Republic (1830), which invoked the image of liberty leading the people to freedom. The French government bought the painting, but officials deemed it too inflammatory and removed it from public view. Nonetheless, Delacroix still received many government commissions for murals and ceiling paintings. Following the Revolution of 1848, which ended the reign of King Louis Philippe, Delacroix’s painting was finally put back on display. For years the painting hung in the Louvre in Paris.

In 1832, Delacroix traveled to Spain and North Africa to escape the Paris civilization and in hope of seeing a more primitive culture. Entranced by the people and the costumes, he produced over 100 Orientalist paintings and drawings based on the life of the people of North Africa.

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, ARA (British, 1833 – 1898), The Nativity, red chalk on paper laid on canvas, 21″ X 17″

Cartoon for stained glass panel at Jesus College Chapel at Cambridge, designed by Edward Burne-Jones, made by William Morris. 

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones was a British painter and designer associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. He was born in Birmingham and quite early in his life it was discovered that he was quite gifted at drawing. In 1853 he went to Exeter College in Oxford, where he met William Morris, who was to become his lifelong friend and an associate in a number of decorative projects. 
He and Morris left Oxford before graduating and started their artistic careers under Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Burne-Jones’s early paintings reveal the heavy influence of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, but by the 1860’s he discovered his own artistic style. Moving away from the Pre-Raphaelite premise that all art should be valued by its potential to change society, he started to accept the idea that art is an object of beauty, which should stimulate a sensual response, not a moral reaction. While his paintings no longer reflected the ideals of the early Pre-Raphaelites, his decorative work remained true to the style and tradition The Brotherhood.

Buren-Jones worked closely with his friend William Morris and in 1861 helped him establish the decorative arts firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. The firm was involved in designing and manufacturing stained glass, metalwork, mosaic tiles, wallpaper, tapestries, and carpets. The decoration of churches was an important part of their business, and Burne-Jones spent much his time at the firm designing stained glass windows for numerous churches throughout the UK. In fact, the rejuvenation of the tradition of stained glass art can be attributed to Burne-Jones.

Two significant secular commissions helped establish the firm’s reputation; one at St. James’s Palace and another at the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert). Both projects featured stained glass windows designed by Burne-Jones. He was also responsible for designing the windows at the Christ Church Cathedral, as swell as several other buildings in Oxford.

In 1881 Burne-Jones received an honorary degree from Oxford, and was made an Honorary Fellow in 1882.In 1885 he became the President of the Birmingham Society of Artists or RBSA, a highly influential art institution in the later Victorian period. It’s about this time that Burne-Jones began hyphenating his name to avoid being lost in the mass of Joneses.

In 1885, Burne-Jones was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy (A.R.A.) and the following year he exhibited (for the only time) at the Academy. In 1893, he formally resigned his Associateship. That same year he was approached to see if he would accept a Baronetcy. Reluctantly he accepted the honor, and in 1894 he was formally named 1^st Baronet. Burne-Jones continued to cast his artistic net widely until the end of his career. In addition to painting, he designed ceramic tiles, jewelry, tapestries, stage costumes, and illustrated books. He executed 87 wood cut designs for the Kelmscott Press edition of Geoffrey Chaucer (1896), considered one the world’s finest printed books.

Cartoon is for the bottom center panel, depicting Matthew, the evangelist, flanked by Sybils.

Luigi Ademollo (Italian, 1764 – 1849), St Ambrose Depositing a Reliquary in San Lorenzo – Florence, black ink and grey wash heightened with white over black chalk on buff paper, 18 X 19 inches Framed 

Luigi Ademollo, an accomplished painter and draftsman, was born in Milan and attended the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera. He left Milan when he was 18 and traveled to Rome and Florence. Ademollo was most known for his masterful frescoes with biblical scenes from the Old and New Testaments. He is also known for his paintings and murals in countless villas, palaces, chapels, and government buildings. In 1789 he was appointed professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. That same year he was asked to execute the decoration at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, and later, a large number of  sacred and secular decorations in Tuscany.

In Florence, he produced frescoes for the Royal Chapel in the Pitti Palace, the chapel of the Annunciation of the Assumption and  the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata (Basilica of the Most Holy Annunciation). Between 1794 and 1827, with the same astonishing skill, he produced etchings with subjects taken from the Bible, Homeric poems, Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered), and Greek and Roman history.He continued to decorate theaters, including theater curtains, until he died in Florence in 1849.