Allegoria della Famiglia Medici

Etching and engraving, c. 1605/10, signed in plate at lower right 'Eques Ioseph Arpinas inuentor/Philippus Thomassinus fecit'.

From a drawing by Giuseppe Cesari known as Cavalier d'Arpino, called Project for an ephemeral apparatus with the Medici family coat of arms and allegorical figures (red pencil, and black pencil, 304 x 399 mm, preserved in Chatsworth, Devonshire Collection, Inv. 314). Preparatory drawing for engraving in honor of Ferdinand I of Tuscany (or Cosimo II?). The composition shows the Medici coat of arms in the center, crowned by Chastity on the left and Abundance on the right, and accompanied by Cybele and Amphitrite, and, below, the Arno River and the Tiber.

The spheres supported by Cybele and Amphitrite and those on which Chastity and Abundance sit were left blank by the draughtsman, who took care to barely hint at the shapes of the landscape glimpsed on the left bottom of the sheet and engraving.

The print, according to Röttgen, is the frontispiece of a "public conclusion," i.e., of a thesis, presented in one of the Colleges of Rome; this kind of print is mentioned, for example, by Giovanni Baglione in the life of Philippe Thomassin, who, according to the biographer, "made various works for thesis, such as, among others, one of Cavalier Gioseppe Cesari d'Arpino" (Baglione, 1642).

"The work mentioned by Baglione could be recognized, Herwarth Röttgen already pointed out, in the Thomassin engraving traced by Röttgen to the drawing in the Devonshire collection (Röttgen, 2002, pp. 516-517, cat. VII). Despite the fact that the print, which was made with very slight changes from the original drawing, bears the name of Giuseppe Cesari, mentioned as the inventor of the composition, and that of Philippe Thomassin as the executor of the carving, Herwarth Röttgen believes that, for stylistic reasons, the drawing should be considered to be in the hand of the younger of the two Cesari brothers, Bernardino. There are no elements, however, to establish that the sheet, brilliant in writing and concordant with other Cesari sheets of the first decade of the seventeenth century, belongs to Bernardino's autography. We consider it appropriate, therefore, to leave the Chatsworth drawing among Giuseppe's original works, maintaining Michael Jaffé's proposed attribution" (see Bolzoni, Il Cavaliere Giuseppe Cesari d'Arpino. Maestro del disegno. Catalogo ragionato dell'opera grafica).

Philippe Thomassin was an engraver and publisher, a native of Troyes, active in Rome from 1585. In 1588 he began publishing his works. In 1589 he began a partnership with Jean Turpin; their company was described in the act of dissolution of January 19, 1602 as devoted to 'the practice of painting and engraving, for the purchase and sale of engravings printed by them or by their order, for sale abroad at retail and wholesale...' In 1590 he was arrested and interrogated by the Sacro Offizio for a portrait-which he would engraved of Henry IV of France. In his early years in Rome he worked for publishers such as Claudio Duchetti, Lorenzo Vaccari and Marcello Clodio. He bought old plates, even a group from the heirs of Aliprando Caprioli in 1599 for which he requested a 10-year privilege from Pope Clement VIII in the same year. In 1603 he published two engravings by Francesco Villamena. Baglione said he liked to focus more on religious subjects, but not exclusively, as the important collection Antiquarum Statuarum Urbis Romae shows.

Magnificent proof, rich in tone, printed on contemporary laid paper "shield with kneeling saint and cross" (Briquet 7268, indicates it as a paper produced in Fabriano around 1602), with very thin margins, very slight traces of glue and vertical creases visible on verso, otherwise in excellent condition.

Extremely rare work of which we have traced only one copy at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest https://printsanddrawings.szepmuveszeti.hu/search/prints/52353/ which dates it to 1605.

Bibliografia

E. Bruwaert, La vie et les oeuvres de Philippe Thomassin Graveur Troyen (1562-1622), 1914, n. 275; Le Blanc C., Manuel de L'amateur D'estampes, n. 70; H. Röttgen, Il Cavalier Giuseppe Cesari d'Arpino, Rome, 2002, pp. 516-517, cat. VII; M.S. Bolzoni, Il Cavaliere Giuseppe Cesari d'Arpino. Maestro del disegno. Catalogo ragionato dell'opera grafica, Roma, 2013, n. 204; Jaffè, Michael, The Devonshire Collection of Italian Drawings, Tuscan and Umbrian. Schools (1994); Philippe Thomassin, Inv. No. 52353, in Zoltán Kárpáti and Eszter Seres, Italian and French Prints before 1620: An On-Line Catalogue, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest 2012 »http://printsanddrawings.hu (accessed June 5, 2012)