Statue of Ocean

Engraving, 1560, signed on plate.

Third state of four, with the inscription: «AMICE QVAM TV HIC EFFIGIEM SPECTATV RARAM DEMIRARIS OCEANI EST ANNIS SVPERIORIB[VS] ROMÆ REPERTA AD ARCVM CAMPILIANI VBI ANTEA NILI ET TIBERIS QVOR[RVM] NVNC IN VATICANO INTRA PONTIFICVM HORTIS VISVNTVR IMAGINES SED HVIVSCE SPECTATV DIGNVM SIMVLACHRVM NVNC IN ÆDIBVS IO[ANNIS] BAPTISTAE ET IO[ANNIS] VINCENTII FABIORVM ROMÆ AD SARRÆ AREAM VISITVR INTERIM QVOD HVNC IN MODVM TIBI REPRHESENTATVR OCEANVS NICOLAO BRATRICIO LOTHARINGO GRATIAS HABE VALE ROMÆ ∞ D LX», and with the imprint of Claudio Duchetti.

The statue was included in the batch of sculptures that the Farnese family bought from the Bernardino Fabio Collection between 1547 and 1549. The Fabii, owners of Castel Fusano, part of the pond of Ostia and other estates, had collected several sculptures of great value including the statue of Oceano depicted here.

At Palazzo Farnese the statue remained until 1786 and was then transported by sea to Naples in 1789, together with the entire Farnese Collection, and today it is in the National Archaeological Museum of the same city. The work is dated (even if scholars do not agree) to the second century AD. The god Ocean lies lying on a side above a rippled surface that symbolizes the sea. An oar rests on his shoulders while an arm is placed almost to caress a Ketos, or sea dragon.

The print proposed here is from the first edition by Antonio Lafréry (without editorial imprint) engraved by Nicolas Beatrizet in 1560. A third edition bears the name of Duchetti, while the fourth edition was made by Giovanni Orlandi (1602).

The work appears in the Lafreri Index, at no. 171, as "Simulacro di Oceano nella casa di Gioanbattista & Gioanuincenzo de Fabij alla piazza di Sciarra”.

Magnificent example, printed on contemporary paper with watermark "losenge in a circle with star" (Woodward 288), thin margins, in excellent condition.

The work belongs to the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, the earliest iconography of ancient Rome. 

The Speculum originated in the publishing activities of Antonio Salamanca and Antonio Lafreri (Lafrery). During their Roman publishing careers, the two editors-who worked together between 1553 and 1563-started the production of prints of architecture, statuary, and city views related to ancient and modern Rome. The prints could be purchased individually by tourists and collectors, but they were also purchased in larger groups that were often bound together in an album. In 1573, Lafreri commissioned a frontispiece for this purpose, where the title Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae appears for the first time. Upon Lafreri's death, two-thirds of the existing copperplates went to the Duchetti family (Claudio and Stefano), while another third was distributed among several publishers. Claudio Duchetti continued the publishing activity, implementing the Speculum plates with copies of those "lost" in the hereditary division, which he had engraved by the Milanese Amborgio Brambilla. Upon Claudio's death (1585) the plates were sold - after a brief period of publication by the heirs, particularly in the figure of Giacomo Gherardi - to Giovanni Orlandi, who in 1614 sold his printing house to the Flemish publisher Hendrick van Schoel. Stefano Duchetti, on the other hand, sold his own plates to the publisher Paolo Graziani, who partnered with Pietro de Nobili; the stock flowed into the De Rossi typography passing through the hands of publishers such as Marcello Clodio, Claudio Arbotti and Giovan Battista de Cavalleris. The remaining third of plates in the Lafreri division was divided and split among different publishers, some of them French: curious to see how some plates were reprinted in Paris by Francois Jollain in the mid-17th century. Different way had some plates printed by Antonio Salamanca in his early period; through his son Francesco, they goes to Nicolas van Aelst's. Other editors who contributed to the Speculum were the brothers Michele and Francesco Tramezzino (authors of numerous plates that flowed in part to the Lafreri printing house), Tommaso Barlacchi, and Mario Cartaro, who was the executor of Lafreri's will, and printed some derivative plates. All the best engravers of the time - such as Nicola Beatrizet (Beatricetto), Enea Vico, Etienne Duperac, Ambrogio Brambilla, and others  - were called to Rome and employed for the intaglio of the works.

All these publishers-engravers and merchants-the proliferation of intaglio workshops and artisans helped to create the myth of the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, the oldest and most important iconography of Rome. The first scholar to attempt to systematically analyze the print production of 16th-century Roman printers was Christian Hülsen, with his Das Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae des Antonio Lafreri of 1921. In more recent times, very important have been the studies of Peter Parshall (2006) Alessia Alberti (2010), Birte Rubach and Clemente Marigliani (2016). 

Bibliografia
Alberti n. A127, III/IV; Rubach 328, III/IV; Marigliani V.66; Bartsch XV, S. 267, Nr. 9; Bianchi 2003-III, S. 7, Nr. 105; Hülsen 1921, Nr. 62; Robert-Dumesnil, Bd. 9, 1865, S. 173, Nr. 101; TIB 29, S. 360, 97 (267); C. Hülsen, 1921, P. 155, 62, B; R. Lanciani, Ii, 1990, P. 170; C. Witcombe, 2008, Pp. 155, 158; S. Pafumi, 2009, Pp. 43-45.