Seated Nymph or Pleiad

Etching, ante 1663, unlettered.

In all the impressions examined, a vertical lone, due to plate damage, goes from the woman’s left arm to her right leg. The etching may date from the end of the artist’s activity when his works began to anticipate elements of eighteenth-century style. 

According to Luca Baroni the plate is from the series of Pleiades, consisting of seven seven plates; they constitute a compact whole in terms of style, technique, format and subject.  They probably correspond (with the addition of a further unidentified specimen or perhaps coinciding with S.R5) to the "eight allegorical figures" described by Heinecken (1778-1790, IV, p. 651) and then passed on in subsequent literature (Huber 1797-1804, IV, nn. 34-31, p. 80; Gori Gandellini, De Angelis 1811, IX, nn. 24-31, p. 144; Vernarecci 1892, n. 22. p. 87).

The series, of allegorical and decorative inspiration, reveals considerable virtuosity and freedom of execution.  The simplifications of the drawing and chiaroscuro, the lack of signatures or printing initials and a general neo-sixteenth-century taste (which seems to look, as already suggested by the critics, to the world of Marcantonio Raimondi and, we might add, to certain themes developed by Agostino Carracci) suggest an early date, before 1663. 

The subject of the group can be tentatively recognized in the Pleiades, figures of classical mythology originating in Arcadia, daughters of Atlas and Peione and corresponding to the seven stars of the homonymous constellation.  According to tradition, one of the Pleiades (alternately identified with Sterope, Elettra or Merope) would be less visible than the others, because of the shame caused by its past behavior.  In the series engraved by Diamantini, in fact, one of the figures (S.1b) is turned of back and seems to want to hide to the look of the observer.  It should be noted, however, that this subject would constitute an iconographic unicum in seventeenth-century Venice, with the exception of the canvas, dubiously identified with Orion and the Pleiades, painted by Pietro Liberi for Palazzo Ferro Fini in Venice (Ruggeri 1996, no. P69, p. 144).

A good impression, on contempoprary laid paper, with margins, good condition.

Bibliografia

TIB 4730.016; Le Blanc, I, p. 123, n. 29; L. Baroni, in Giuseppe Diamantini pittore e incisore dalle Marche a Venezia (2021), pp. 270 – 271.