The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine

Woodcut, unsigned and without editorial indications, dated to the end of the 15th century. Example of later issue, published by the printing house of Bartolomeo Soliani.

The work appears on the printer's 1864 catalog (p. 159) edited by Bartolomeo Soliani's heirs: Catalogo generale delle incisioni in legno per uso di tipografia di varie epoche di antica spettanza degli eredi di Bartolomeo Soliani, preserved at the Galleria Estense in Modena.

http://xilografiemodenesi.beniculturali.it/collezioni/cataloghi/catalogo-soliani-1864/

In 1646, Bartolomeo Soliani founded the printing house, active until 1870. Soliani printed mainly religious operettas and popular editions (love rhymes, romances of chivalry, burlesque writings), frequently decorated in the frontispiece with woodcuts. He also acquired a substantial number of woodcut plates by sixteenth-century artists, which he later reprinted. The Soliani's prints, which together constitute one of the most remarkable documents of popular Italian engraving, are reproduced in Xilografie del tipografo modenese Bartolomeo Soliani ed eredi dal 1646 al 1752 (1914). The major personality of the family was Bartolomeo II (1695-1751), to whom we owe one edition. The nucleus of 2613 xylographic examples, belonging to the production of the Stamperia Soliani, became part of the Galleria Estense in 1887 thanks to the efforts of Adolfo Venturi, then a young museum official.

A good impression on laid paper, very good condition.

Bibliografia

I legni incisi della Galleria Estense. Quattro secoli di stampa nell'Italia settentrionale, Modena 1986, pp. 135 ss.