Venus and Cupid

Woodcut, signed, dated and inscribed lower left: 'Titianus Inv / Nicolaus Boldrinius Vincentinus inci / debat 1566'. First state of two.

A very good impression, printed on contemporary laid paper, trimmed to the borderline, in very good condition. 

Although this is one of the three works by Niccolo Boldrini in which the inscription names Titian as inventor, Titian and Boldrini never worked together. Boldrini used Titian's earlier drawing of c. 1530 for this print in 1566.

No preliminary drawing for the print has survived, and some scholars thought that Boldrini used a sheet representing only the figures and added a background inspired by other prints or drawings by Titian.

“The only known biographical record of Nicolò Boldrini, a blockcutter from Vicenza active in Venice, is a marriage contract of June 19, 1547. Four signed prints provide some grounds for establishing his oeuvre: a woodcut Landscape with Saint John the Baptist after Domenico Campagnola and the chiaroscuro woodcuts Christ as the Man of Sorrows after Albrecht Dürer, Leaping Horseman after Pordenone (B.XII.145.9), and Venus and Cupid (B.XII.126.29). Boldrini’s output appears to divide roughly into two distinct periods. In his early career, starting in the 1530s, Boldrini produced conventional woodcuts. Among those attributed to him is Six Saints, dated around 1535, for which Titian, Vasari writes, drew directly on the woodblock. If Six Saints indeed testifies to Boldrini’s close working relationship with Titian in the mid-1530s, his woodcuts through the following decade suggest an increasing independence from the painter whose interest in the technique was waning. In the 1560s, Boldrini emerged as a chiaroscurist. In addition to the three signed chiaroscuro woodcuts mentioned, at least five more can be attributed to him on the basis of cutting technique and physical evidence, such as inks and watermarks, including Hercules and the Nemean Lion and Hunter on Horseback.

Although Boldrini’s Venus and Cupid credits Titian for the design, the painter’s involvement with the chiaroscuro woodcut is unlikely. By 1566, when it was made, Titian was deeply invested in having his painted compositions recorded as engravings. His application for a publishing privilege in January 1567 (granted on February 4 of that year) makes no mention of woodcuts, and his closest interpreter in the years 1565–71 was the engraver Cornelis Cort. While Venus and Cupid does not relate to an extant painting by Titian, the figural style of Venus reaching to embrace the winged Cupid can be associated with the painter’s work of the 1530s or earlier. The wooded setting, however, must have derived from a different (likely later) source, or may represent Boldrini’s own invention” (Takahatake N., The Chiaroscuro Woodcut in Renaissance Italy, p. 205).

This woodcut also exists in a chiaroscuro version (two blocks, Bartsch XII.126.29).

Bibliografia

Bartsch A. Le Peintre Graveur, XII.126.29; Bartsch A., Die Kupferstichsammlung der K. K. Hofbibliothek in Wien, Wien, 1854, XII.126.29; Baseggio G., Intorno tre celebri intagliatori in legno vicentini, Bassano, 1844, p. 33; Oberhuber K., Renaissance in Italien. 16 Jahrhundert Werke aus dem Besitz der Albertina. Die Kunst der Graphik 3, Wien, 1966, nn. 177-178; Tiziano e la silografia veneziana del Cinquecento, Vicenza, 1976, p. 137, n. 78; Oberhuber K., Titian Woodcuts and Drawings: Some Problems, Tiziano e Venezia, Vicenza, 1980, pp. 526-528; Chiari Moretto Wiel M. A., Incisioni da Tiziano: catalogo del fondo grafico a stampa del Museo Correr, Venezia, 1982, pp. 39-40; Myth, Allegory and Faith. The Kirk Edward Long Collection of Mannerist Prints, Cinisello Balsamo, 2015, p. 364, n. 40; Takahatake N., Atlante delle xilografie italiane del Rinascimento, ALU.0187.1; Takahatake N., The Chiaroscuro Woodcut in Renaissance Italy, Los Angeles, 2018, pp. 205-209, n. 85; Landau, Printmaking in Venice and the Veneto, in “The Genius of Venice, 1500-1600”, n. P42; Hinterding Chiaroscuro Woodcuts from the Frits Lugt Collection in Paris, n. 39a.