Seated King

Copy of a niello print from the Durazzo Collection

Dutuit noted that, unknown to Bartsch, Duchesne, and Zanetti, the facsimile they recorded was not copied from a paper impression but, rather, from an original silver plaque that belonged to Durazzo (n. 2824), repositary of which is unknown.

Ninteenth-century authors described ita s representing a bearded, long-haired king or emperor, wearing a crown and seated in profile with open arms. According to Zanetti and Dutuit, the plauqe was Florentine.

The nielli of the Durazzo collection were reproduced in engravings by the owner himself, between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, in Venice - as also specified by Malaspina in his catalog of 1824 - constituting a series that was circulated and collected by amateurs. Bartsch describes these copies in his volume published in 1811, a date that therefore constitutes the terminus ante quem for the execution.