Sheep grazing

Etching, ca. 1770/80, signed in plate at bottom “Ab. Ottolini f.”.

Belongs to a series of etchings engraved in the style of Francesco Londonio.

Abbot Gerolamo Ottolini held a respectable minor position in Milan in the 18th century. He had a rather versatile talent that matched his interest in rationalistic culture leading to practical knowledge. In fact, he wrote about technical subjects around his hometown of Cerro Maggiore and was responsible, probably, for the first agrarian survey that took place in Italy.

In addition, Ottolini was also an engraver and painter. As far as his artistic activity is concerned, it is to be assumed that after an initial phase devoted to painting, as the years went by he devoted himself mainly to engraving; moreover, in the contemporary texts that mention him, almost all of which are concentrated in the 1780s, only once is he mentioned as a figurative artist and as an engraver in particular, and the memory of him as a painter must have faded so quickly that Zani, in his encyclopedia, remembered him by then only as a draughtsman and engraver (cf. P. Zani, Enciclopedia metodico critica ragionata delle belle arti, p. I, Parma, 1817-24).

The last figurative document that we possess, at the present state of studies, of Gerolamo Ottolini is an engraving preserved at the Bertarelli Collection in Milan representing the sepulchral monument of Giangaleazzo Visconti at the Certosa in Pavia. This work, which can be placed around the 80s of the century if not the following decade, has a clarity and linearity, and if you will, a coldness, that are fully neoclassical, as, moreover, is the allegorical figure on the frontispiece of the letter on the common decay of silkworms, contained in “Lettere dell’abate Gerolamo Ottolini intorno all’educazione de’ bachi da seta, ed all’annuo ricolto de’ bozzoli degli anni 1786-1787 e 1788”. These two engravings are not entirely in line with what he had done previously, in fact, if we stand at other engravings in the frontispieces of his treatises, particularly the one concerning machines for spinning, we find not only a remarkable precision of representation that has nothing to envy to the analogous French engravings, but the female figures do not disfigure in comparison with a Londonio, for example, thus lowering us into an atmosphere that is still Arcadian” (cf. Fiorenzo Baini, Gerolamo ottolini, illuminist abbot and amateur of painting).

Magnificent proof, printed on contemporary laid paper, with margins, minimal oxidation, otherwise in excellent condition. A very rare work.

On verso collection mark of Giuseppe Pacini (Lugt 2011).

https://www.marquesdecollections.fr/FtDetail/0c861bfb-3975-8340-a236-bdcd0775d1b3