Silenus Supported by a Young Bacchant or A Young and an Old Bacchant

Engraving, circa 1530, monogrammed “AA” on the base at right.

Derivation, in counterpart and with some differences, of an engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi dated c. 1520-25 (Bartsch 294). Not described by the repertories, it bears the monogram AA on the base; there is another version, artistically much more modest, which bears the same monogram placed on a tablet, above.

The main differences from the model are the faces of the figures and the position of their heads above the base: in this print by Monogrammist AA, the eyes are open and looking down, and the heads are also tilted downward; in addition, there is a second cloak, almost suspended in the air, partially covering the trunk of the tree, the latter of which is different from Raimondi's model.

The ancient prototype for Marcantonio's subject was identified in the 19th century as part of a bas-relief that was previously in Villa Albani in Rome. Suggested names for the author of the drawing are those of Raphael or Giulio Romano. This is how Stefania Massari describes Marcantonio's work: “print of 1520-1525 (Shoemaker) stylistically comparable to the Hercules and Antheus (Bartsch, XIV, no. 346) from an idea by Raphael but more likely by Giulio Romano, whose prototype has been identified by both Passavant and Delaborde in the Roman relief of Villa Albani (cf. G. Zoega, Bassi rilievi antichi del Palazzo Albani, Rome, 1808). The subject has been related by Sopher to the never executed painting commissioned from Raphael in 1519 by Alfonso I d'Este depicting a Bacchanal” (cf. S. Massari in Raphael invenit, p. 247).

A very rare work, the only example of which we have surveyed in public collections is that in the Albertina in Vienna:

https://sammlungenonline.albertina.at/?query=search=/record/objectnumbersearch=[DG1964/80]&showtype=record

The great artistic level of this engraving, superior to Marcantonio's version, conceals the hand of a mysterious engraver. Also in the Albertina catalog, under the name Monogrammist AA, four engravings are listed, including this one. However, the style of the other three works and even the monogram that signs them, differ from the artistic quality expressed by this Silenus, leaving many doubts about the authorship of the plate.

In our opinion, the Silenus supported by a young bacchante has many stylistic affinities with another “mysterious” engraving, the Allegory of the Earthly Paradise and the Sacrifice of Abel, which both Bartsch and K. Oberhuber ('Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Renaissance in Italien: 16 Jahrhundert', exh. cat., Vienna 1966, p. 171), attribute to the hand of the Bolognese painter Amico Aspertini (1474-1552). The Allegory of the Earthly Paradise was attributed to the hand of Giulio Bonasone or Agostino Veneziano; Oberhuber felt that the unprofessional engraving technique supported the possibility first suggested by Bartsch, who saw Aspertini as not only the inventor of the subject.

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_H-7-67

This is only conjecture - as is the case with all of Aspertini's graphic work - but the monogram AA could detect the signature of the Bolognese painter. Who, after all, was no stranger to interpreting subjects already interpreted by his countryman Marcantonio Raimondi.

Amico Aspertini, a passionate draughtsman, was up-to-date on Nordic graphic art: the engraved sheets by Martin Schongauer, Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein, and Luca di Leida were among his most faithful companions. They support him even in his earliest important commissions: an invention by Schongauer inspired the Adoration of the Magi in the Pinacoteca Nazionale; he stole landscapes from Dürer's engravings and made them the wings in frescoes in the Oratory of Santa Cecilia, in Bologna, and in the Chapel of Sant'Agostino in San Frediano, in Lucca. German engravings are also rich reservoirs of human types and bizarre physiognomies-recurring in Amico's work, the Nordic counterbalance to those physiognomic studies on which artists (Leonardo da Vinci) and scholars (in Bologna Bartolomeo della Rocca known as Cocles) worked in Italy. Aspertini was an engraver himself, using various techniques: the engraving (Cinque putti: un tamburino e quattro danzanti), drypoint, and probably woodcut. At the same time he forged relationships with specialists in the field (Monogrammista C, Giovanni Antonio da Brescia, Francesco de Nanto, Agostino Veneziano...), to whom he delivered his own drawings for reproduction. His engravings had a good circulation, as evidenced by their reuse in majolica. [...] The artist liked to reproduce the “barbaric lust” of the reliefs in the sarcophagi, as in the case of the sheet with the Lion Hunt. In the Young Nude in Front of an Altar Surmounted by a Pinecone, engraved by Monogrammist C, he is inspired by the isolated figures, like individual classical statues, engraved by his countryman Marcantonio Raimondi. In contrast, the Allegory of the Expulsion from the Earthly Paradise, with its high iconographic density and neo-medieval spaces, conveys a sense of suffocating restlessness, reflecting the political and religious storms of the late third decade of the sixteenth century” (translate from Silvia Urbini, "Cocci e gioielli": Aspertini e l'incisione, 1995).

Excellent proof, printed with tone on contemporary laid paper, trimmed to copperplate, in perfect condition.

On verso, unidentified ownership stamp (Lugt 2732). Magnificent and very rare example.

Bibliografia
cfr. Bartsch XIV.222.294; cfr. Shoemaker 1981, n. 52; cfr. Passavant VI.29.181; Raphael invenit, Mito, p. 247, n. VI.3; cfr. Silvia Urbini, "Cocci e gioielli": Aspertini e l'incisione, in Andrea Emiliani, Daniela Scaglietti Kelescian, “Amico Aspertini 1474-1552 Artista bizzarro nell'età di Dürer e Raffaello”, pp. 281-330.