Madonna and Child

Etching and engraving, undated but circa 1740/50, signed in plate lower right Appresso G. Wagner Merzeria Venezia. From a subject by Jacopo Amigoni.

Inscription at bottom Egredietur Virga de radice Jesse et flos de radice eius ascendet.

Valuable engraving reproducing a Madonna and Child taken from an invention by Jacopo Amigoni (1682-1752). Among the many versions of the subject in the catalog of Amigoni's paintings, two are the ones that come closest to the engraved example: the first, which appeared on the antiquarian market, was in Lugano (Maison d'Art, Scarpa Sonino 1994), while the second, almost identical, is currently part of the Terruzzi collection in Bordighera; both paintings are dated by Annalisa Scarpa Sonino to the 1940s (Scarpa Sonino 1994, 2007).

Compared to the paintings, the engraver transforms the sprig of roses present in the lower right into a floral frame enclosing the scene and adds in the upper part of the image a theory of cherubs, an iconographic element used several times by Amigoni. In the lower part of the print, a verse from the book of Isaiah (11:1) reads in a scroll adorned with scrolls.

The print is present, along with one by Wagner depicting Jesus with a cross and globe, in the Cattalogo delle stampe che si vende appresso Giuseppe Wagner, printed before 1760 (Griffiths 1993), under the title "Mad.a con fiore e Puttino" and the serial number characterized by the letter "r."

Joseph Wagner was born in 1706 in Thalendorf Aarlberg, Bregenz county. Having shown a special aptitude for art since childhood, he was taken on as an apprentice by a common painter.

His great skill soon made him realize that at his master's he would not be able to learn much, so he decided to leave the workshop and move to Munich at the age of 14, not before touring several cities. At the time Jacopo Amigoni was working at the Bavarian court, and Wagner noticed that he was the best painter working in the city. He therefore had no qualms about going to him to talk to him about his passion for painting. Amigoni took him under his protective wing, making him his pupil. At the same time Wagner frequented the house of the court engraver Späth, trying to learn as much as he could. He remained two years in Munich, and when Amigoni undertook a trip to Rome he also took Wagner with him" (Heinecken 1768, I, p. 124).

In 1739, Wagner decided to move to Venice, where he founded, again in collaboration with Amigoni, the “Calcografia Wagner”, which quickly became the most important center of printmaking and dissemination in the Serenissima. At Wagner's workshop the most talented chalcographic artists active in 18th-century Venice, such as Francesco Bartolozzi, Fabio Berardi, Giuliano Giampiccoli, Antonio Capellan and Giovanni Volpato, trained and collaborated. From the presses of the workshop located in Merceria San Zulian, hundreds of engravings came out, in which not only are all the various components of the lagoon figurative culture of the period represented, with important openings to Italian and foreign schools of painting.

Beautiful proof, printed on contemporary laid virgin paper, trimmed to copperplate, in good condition. Very rare work, found only in the collection of the Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome (inv. 20 B.1.77 60).

Bibliografia

Chiara Lo Giudice, Joseph Wagner incisore e imprenditore nell’Europa del Settecento, pp. 432-433, n. 84; A. Griffiths, The Rogers Collection in the Cottonian Library, Plymouth, in “Print Quarterly”, 10, I, 1993, pp. 19-36; K. H. Heinecken, Nachrichten von Künstlern und Künstsachen, 2 voll, Leipzig, 1768; A. Scarpa Sonino, Jacopo Amigoni, Cremona 1994; Fascino del bello: opere d’Arte dalla collezione Terruzzi, catalogo della mostra (Roma, Vittoriano, 1 marzo-20 maggio 2007), a cura di A. Scarpa Sonino, M. Lupo, Milano 2007