The Last Supper

Woodcut, 1520 – 1530 circa lettered lower right 'Franciscus de Nanto / S Iacobi sindit'.

From a drawing by Biagio Pupini, now in the Louvre.

http://arts-graphiques.louvre.fr/detail/oeuvres/42/101527-La-Cene-max

Beautiful proof, rich in tone, printed on contemporary laid paper with watermark "Maltese Cross with letters FV", complete with marginal line, in perfect condition.

The composition is dominated by the contrast between a flat, insignificant background and the rich gestures of the figures in the foreground. The scene depicted on the other hand is highly dramatic. The disciples are caught in a decisive moment of tension and turmoil; they realize that they are living an exceptional experience, but they are at the same time shocked by the announcement of the betrayal and aware that they cannot fully understand the meaning of what is happening.

The artist admirably succeeds in communicating all of this by cramming the figures into a small space, thus giving their gestures an even more intense and dramatic charge.

In the history of woodcut in Italy, a not secondary place is occupied by Francesco De Nanto, whose work, as interesting as it is little known, would deserve a greater diffusion for its artistic merits (cfr. C. Stella, Francesco De Nanto in Grafica d'Arte, October-December 1992, pp. 6-9). 

The work is of extraordinary rarity; we have been able to find only four examples of this woodcut, in various issues and editions. The wooden block, for the 5 examples in question including ours, always appears moth-eaten. However, some exemplars show an increasing number of gaps in the mark, due to woodworm.

The Last Supper in the Bertarelli Collection in Milan, already described by Cristiana Stella (cf. C. Stella, Francesco De Nanto, n. 3), appears in a similar edition to ours.

In addition, we would like to point out for particular beauty the proof kept in the British Museum of London

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1881-0611-8

The Last Supper in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, has a much later printing issue.

https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.3905.html

There also is a nineteenth-century issue, preserved in the Catalogo generale delle incisioni in legno per uso di tipografia di varie epoche di antica spettanza degli eredi di Bartolomeo Soliani, Galleria Estense of Modena.

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

In the Catalogo there are more works by Denanto, confirming that his woodblocks arrived in the stock of the Stamperia Soliani of Modena.

“The invention of this print, signed by Francesco Denanto, has been correctly referred to Biagio Pupini by Paolo Ervas. Indeed, the scholar points to a drawing attributed to Pupini preserved in the Cabinet des dessins of the Louvre, which depicts the same scene in counterpart and is similar in size to the print (inv. no. 4286, the attribution to Pupini is by Pouncey). Compared to the drawing, however, the woodcut is simplified in its spatial setting and decidedly poorer in its rendering of the characters, who become flat and feature-laden. This is the only case in Francesco Denanto's production in which it is possible to establish a comparison between a drawing and the print and thus evaluate its interpretation, which in this case, unfortunately, definitely impoverishes the original invention. It should be pointed out, however, that this Last Supper is the lowest quality carving among those signed by Denanto known to us: the quality of the stories of Christ from drawings by Girolamo da Treviso il Giovane is in fact decidedly superior. [...] This woodcut is an early impression of a woodblock preserved at the Estensi Galleries in Modena. On the recto of the same wood is carved another composition, a Holy Family with Saints Roch and Sebastian. The block belongs to the Soliani collection and some modern impressions of it are also known. It was in fact imprinted in the catalog Incisioni in legno esistenti nella Reale Tipografia degli Eredi Soliani of 1828 (kept at the Biblioteca Civica Poletti in Modena); in the catalog of the Soliani sale of 1864, (of which three examples are known, one at the Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, one at the Musei Civici in Modena, and one at the Gallerie Estensi in which it is printed on p. 54); finally in the so-called "Bariola Catalog" published in ten examples in about 1913 (p. 38 of the numbered example in the Estense Galleries of Modena). A further example is preserved in Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana (inv. 19800)” (cf. Urbini S., Piazzi M.L. Atlante delle xilografie italiane del Rinascimento, ALU.0403.1).

The biographical information on Francesco Denanto is scarce and very lacunose. Son of an Iacopo and of Savoyard origin, as we learn from the subscriptions of his woodcuts - "Franciscus lacobi Denanto sindit" "Franciscus Denanto de Sabaudia" (but the place of origin should be Nantua, in the current department of Ain). The date of birth, according to De Vesme, should not be later than 1490, since in a document of 1524, preserved in the State Archives of Rome, is already named "magister" a certain Franciscu de Nempto savoiardo, printer of painted papers in Rome, with which it is legitimate to identify the artist. Therefore in 1524 the artist was certainly present in Rome, but it is not possible to establish for how many years he remained in the Capitoline city.

The only other noteworthy date is 1532, the year in which an edition of Orlando Furioso was published in Ferrara by Francesco Rosso di Valenza; for this edition Denanto engraved a frame, used for the frontispiece and later also to frame the portrait of Ludovico Ariosto inserted in the penultimate sheet of the volume. In the absence of documentary and literary news, his activity can be reconstructed only on the basis of the engraving production consisting of 44 woodcuts signed (cf. Depaulis T., From Savoy to Rome: Francesco de Nanto, a Neglected Printmaker of the Early Sixteenth Century), but not dated, mostly of which refer to the life of Christ.

Denanto's production has been constantly reconnected to the Venetian artistic environment, where it is likely that the he began his activity among the many artists dedicated to engraving and book illustration. His wide and strong engraving language, the use of long parallel and crossed hatching in thick differentiated plots and other technical characteristics reveal the study of Titianesque models of the second decade and of Domenico Campagnola's youthful woodcuts; but stylistic elements deduced from Marcantonio and Parmigianino have led some to believe that De Nanto had contacts with the works of these masters in Emilia.

A very rare work.

Bibliografia

De Vesme, 1906, p. 1511; Petrucci, Panorama dell'incisione ital. Il Cinquecento, p. 100 n. 114; K. Oberhuber, Renaissance in Italien 16. Jahrhundert (catal.), pp. 121 s.; M. Pittaluga, L’incisione italiana nel Cinquecento, 1928, p. 264; Nagler G. K., Die Monogrammisten, München, 1858-1879, p. 492, n. 1261; Passavant J.D., Le peintre-graveur: contenant l'Histoire de la gravure sur bois, sur métal et au burin jusque vers la fin du XVI siècle [...], Paris, 1860-1864, I, 1863, p. 150; VI, 1864, pp. 213 s., 225 ss; Kristeller P., Denanto, Francesco, in “Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart”, Leipzig, 1913, p. 63;  Zava Boccazzi F., Tracce per Gerolamo da Treviso il Giovane in alcune xilografie di Francesco de Nanto, in “Arte Veneta”, 1959, p. 73; I legni incisi della Galleria Estense. Quattro secoli di stampa nell'Italia Settentrionale, Modena, 1986, p. 136, n. 113 (G. Benassati), fig. 113; Dillon G., Denanto, Francesco, in “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, 1990; McDonald M. P., The Print Collection of Ferdinand Columbus (1488-1539). A Renaissance Collector in Seville, London, 2004; Ervas P., Girolamo da Treviso, Saonara, 2014, p. 9; C. Stella, Francesco De Nanto in Grafica d’Arte, ottobre-dicembre 1992, n. 12, pp. 6-9; Depaulis T., From Savoy to Rome: Francesco de Nanto, a Neglected Printmaker of the Early Sixteenth Century, in “Print Quarterly”, 2020, v. XXXVII, pp. 123-139.