Game of putti

Etching and roulette, printed in brown ink, circa 1770.

After a drawing by Guercino.

A fine impression, printed on contemporary laid paper, trimmed to the platemark, good condition.

The work is part of Charles Rogers, A Collection of Prints in Imitation of Drawings. To which are annexed lives of their authors. printed by J. Nichols in London, and sold by John Boydell, Benjamin White, and Peter Molini, 1778.

The plates, which use a wide variety of techniques, show some old master drawings in Rogers's own collection. His preface states: “That these prints may be faithful imitations, they are engraved the same way as, as well as the same size, as the Originals are drawn; and printed, as nearly as possible, in the same colours”.

Francesco Bartolozzi, the son of a Florentine goldsmith, met German engraver Joseph Wagner at whose workshop, the most important in Venice, where he moved in August 1748. In the lagoon city Bartolozzi remained for sixteen years, participating in artistic life and coming into contact with major publishers and printers, as well as men of culture. He alternated between his own works and translations by other artists in collaboration with Wagner, such as the series devoted to Guercino to which he devoted himself almost exclusively between 1761 and 1765. These are the years when Bartolozzi becomes the owner of his own workshop. He then moved to England, where he stayed for about forty years, and where he devoted himself mainly to the activity of translation, alternating with equal success between interpreting the works of famous painters of the past and those of his contemporaries. In addition to drawings by Guercino in the royal collection, the artist reproduced drawings by the Carracci, Pietro da Cortona, Guido Reni, Carlo Maratta, and his friend Giovan Battista Cipriani.

Bibliografia 

Calabi & De Vesme, Francesco Bartolozzi. Catalogue des estampes et notice biographique d'après les manuscrits de A. De Vesme entièrement réformés et complétés d'une étude critique par A. Calabi; R. Weigel, Die Werke der Maler in ihren Handzeichnungen p. 77.