Primo Incisore

Original engraving; Bartsch 18 (as Zoan Andrea); Hind V 27.21; Martineau 138; Levenson-Oberhuber-Sheehan; D. Landau e S. Boorsch 433.138;

Splendid proof, particularly intense and inked. Well-inked and vigorous proofs of Italian primitives – such as the print under examination – are rare and sought after. The engraving is impressed on a paper with characteristics typical of contemporary proofs, although it is lacking a watermark. The conservation is more than excellent, with the exception of a small restoration, in the centre of the sheet, with a very small surface, expertly executed and invisible.

The engraving, initially attributed to Zoan Andrea, is now credited to the principal engraver in the workshop of Andrea Mantegna, internationally identified as Primo Incisore.

His work in the workshop is attributed to some of the Maestro's most successful subjects and derived from drawings by Andrea Mantegna. The subject is engraved on the verso of the plate Hercules and Antheus, demonstrating the close ties of the engravers within the workshop.

The subject reflects the preliminary drawing of the central figures in Mantegna's painting of the Muses for Isabella d'Este's Studiolo, completed in 1497. However, there are several differences between the engraving and the final painting. The most important concerns the position of the faces of the second and fourth maidens from the left. Depicted here in profile, in the painting they look towards the viewer. While the second was modified by Mantegna himself in the time between the preparatory drawing and the final work, the face of the fourth was modified by another painter after the painting was completed.