Re: Cary Sheet again

91
As was commented in the AT thread: in its three details, high waisted gown, slashed hanging sleeve and hairstyle, it is close to the CY sheet.

Individual parts can be found on their own:

the high waisted gown is common to most of the Gringonneur female figures, Justice, Temperance and Sun for example;

also as possible evidence of its fashion in the 15th century we can see it is common in other painted decks, such as the d'Este [Queen of Cups, Queen of Swords, Temperance] and the Rosenthal Visconti-Sforza;

the Brera-Brambilla Visconti-Sforza Queen of Staves also has both a high waisted gown and a slashed hanging sleeve, though it is of the very low 'training across the floor' type [Kaplan Vol I. p.97].
Last edited by SteveM on 06 Aug 2010, 20:03, edited 4 times in total.

Re: Cary Sheet again

92
You might find this interesting.
http://www.houseofpung.net/sca/15c_mens_italian.pdf

In Florence I went to the Art Gallery and they had a clothing display and these Calze were also worn with Guild colours, as well as the colours of the Local district- the same as the flags for the processions and horse races.

~Lorredan

Just looked up my notes and the five districts where or had a Church...blue for St. Croce, red for St. Maria Novella, white for St. Spirito and green for St. Giovanni.
So I guess those lovers in the procession belong to the Saint John the Baptist or it is the secular procession for his feast day June 24th.
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: Cary Sheet again

94
SteveM wrote:Many of the engravings, possibly up to a third, in the Italian Bible are adapted from engravings in a German bible, providing an example of how models for engravings may come from foreign sources. Other models were frescos of Italian churches, such as Maggiore in Rome.
Thank you Steve,
the Malermi Bible images seem particularly relevant to me. In my opinion, those two images are the closest we have come to the style of the Cary Sheet.
I have read that someone identifies the engraver of the Malermi Bible with the illustrator of the Hypnerotomachia: both engravers signed their works with a "b".
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Re: Cary Sheet again

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marco wrote:
SteveM wrote: I have read that someone identifies the engraver of the Malermi Bible with the illustrator of the Hypnerotomachia: both engravers signed their works with a "b".
Others have said that it is more likely the mark of a particular workshop rather than a specific engraver, but still that would mean they were from the same workshop. Several engravers/workshops are thought to have worked on the Malermi engravings (not all are marked with the 'b').

I am not sure exactly how many of the Malermi engravings are adapted from the German, but the Malermi bible has about three times more engravings than the German, that is why I wrote 'possibly up to a third'.

Re: Cary Sheet again

96
SteveM wrote:
marco wrote:
SteveM wrote: I have read that someone identifies the engraver of the Malermi Bible with the illustrator of the Hypnerotomachia: both engravers signed their works with a "b".
Others have said that it is more likely the mark of a particular workshop rather than a specific engraver, but still that would mean they were from the same workshop. Several engravers/workshops are thought to have worked on the Malermi engravings (not all are marked with the 'b').

I am not sure exactly how many of the Malermi engravings are adapted from the German, but the Malermi bible has about three times more engravings than the German, that is why I wrote 'possibly up to a third'.
quote:
"Several of the illustrations are marked with a small "b'' — a signature which (so far as we know at present) appears here for the first time, and which is to be met, again and again afterwards, during more than a century from the date of the Malermi Bible, upon outline -woodcuts produced in Venice.

"Professor Thode was the first writer who drew attention to the circumstance that the woodcuts of the Malermi Bible are copies of those in the Cologne German Bible of 1480. The Cologne woodblocks were, as everyone knows, used again in Koburger's Nuremberg Bible of 1483.

"There can be no doubt that the Italian artist had the German woodcuts before him, when he was drawing the illustrations of the Malermi Bible. He copied them indeed, but with the greatest freedom; reducing the dimensions and altering the positions, making groups where there had been isolated figures, dividing groups into their separate elements, changing the costumes in accordance with Italian fashion. In short, he simply used the Cologne illustrations as a convenient groundwork for his own designs, adopting certainly nothing beyond the pictorial subject of each. Nor did he allow the narrow and commonplace character of those Gothic models to affect his own artistic fancy; as we can easily judge from the freedom and elegance of his work. Moreover, by far the larger proportion of these compositions was entirely new, since there are only a hundred and ten illustrations in the Cologne Bible (— a hundred and seven in Koburger's Bible —); while the Malermi Bible, if we include a few repetitions, contains three hundred and eighty three. And it is precisely amongst the new ones, that we find the most charming and graceful compositions of the entire series.

"Nineteen of the Malermi woodcuts were adapted, with more or less variation, from the Postilla of Nicolaus de Lyra. Like the illuminated Bible- manuscripts of the miniaturists, the Malermi Bible includes, at the beginning, an illustration of page size, representing the seven days of the Creation. It is framed within a pretty Renaissance border of architectonic ornament. The border is frequently met with in later works from Venetian presses; the vignettes themselves appear in other editions of the Bible, in 1492 and 1494 (Hain, 3157, 3158), and afterwards."
end quote

The Art of Italian Wood-Engraving in the Fifteenth Century by Friedrich Lippmann 1888

On the Cologne Bible illustrations:
quote:
"The Cologne bibles are of particular importance because their illustrations served as patterns for whole series of illustrations in later bibles in German, Italian, Czech (or Bohemian), French, Dutch and English, including the Great Bible of Henry VIII which came out in 1539. Before 1500, similar illustrations had been brought into Latin bibles as well. . . . In the early days of printing there was no protection for authors, artists, or their publishers. Illustrations could very readily be transferred from one book to another and a favourite set of drawings, such as appeared first in the Cologne bibles, was copied by other printers again and again. Sometimes the copying was far from intelligent and the illustrations that suffered in this way became more corrupt and less valuable as time went on."
end quote from http://www.gallerywalk.org/PM_Cologne.html

The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili was also first printed in Venice, 1499 so certainly the engraver could have been of the same workshop. Some have ascribed the engravings to Benedetto Bordone, but if the above quotation is correct in stating the the 'b' appears in prints through the following century this appears unlikely as Benetto died in 1531:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedetto_Bordone

For such prints to appear over the course of a century makes it more likely I think the 'b' is the mark of a workshop rather than an individual.
Last edited by SteveM on 07 Aug 2010, 06:47, edited 2 times in total.

Re: Cary Sheet again

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SteveM wrote:
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:
Just for the record, another set of nice pattens, although not worn with real poulaines, is this one from the Master of the Playing Cards (German), 1454, showing an Unter of Flowers.
I can see in my mind another German one, a page / falconer I think on a black and white floor - deck name begins with G... only a few of the cards survice... '
One of the Guildhall or Goldsmith? I saw it a little while ago but ran out of time and meant to go back to it, but now I cannot find it:(

Re: Cary Sheet again

100
SteveM wrote: The Florentine Picture Chronicle for example was used as a model book...

Image


... Attributed to Baccio Baldini, Maso Finiguerra, or artists in their circle, the drawings in the album often compile scenes by using figural elements selected from pattern books..
For examples of the Fine and Broad manners under which prints of the Finiguerra school (of which there is a unrealistic tendency among some over-enthusiastic art historians to attribute everything to Baldini) see post 5 on the Papesse thread here:

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=385&p=8275#p8275

Also attributed to Finiguerra is a Children of the Planets series, and many of the Otto Prints too.

Quote:
“Considering Vasari 's evident error in regard to the discovery of engraving (for there were engravings in the north of Europe well before the earliest possible example of Finiguerra), modern students have been inclined to regard Finiguerra as much in the light of a myth as Baldini. But there is no lack of evidence as to his life and work, and without repeating the arguments here, which are given in full in Sir Sidney Colvin 's "Florentine Picture-Chronicle" (London, 1898), we would at least state our conviction that a considerable number of the early Florentine engravings, as well as an important group of nielli, must be from his hand.

“Vasari speaks of him as the most famous niello-worker in Florence, and he also speaks of his drawings of 'figures clothed and unclothed, and histories' (the "figures" evidently the series traditionally ascribed to Finiguerra in Florence, but now for a large part labeled with an extreme of timidity "school of Pollaiuolo"; the "histories," probably the ' ' Picture-Chronicle ' ' series, acquired from Mr. Ruskin for the British Museum). Then considering Vasari's fuller statement that Finiguerra was also responsible for larger engravings in the light of a group of Florentine engravings which correspond closely in style with many of the only important group of Florentine nielli (chiefly in the collection of Baron Edouard de Rothschild, Paris) as well as with the Uffizi drawings, we can hardly escape the conviction that Vasari was correct in his main thesis.

“A curiously entertaining side-light is given by one of these engravings, the Mercury for the series of "Planets." Here we see the representation of a goldsmith's shop in the streets of Florence, stocked just as we know from documents Finiguerra 's to have been. And the goldsmith is evidently engaged in engraving, not a niello, but a large copperplate.

Image


The engravings most certainly by Finiguerra, such as the Judgment Hall of Pilate (Gotha), the March to Calvary and the Crucifixion (British Museum), Various Wild Animals Hunting and Fighting (British Museum), are of course rarities which most collectors can never hope to possess. The same may also be said of somewhat later prints in the same manner of engraving (which may be the work of the heirs of Finiguerra 's atelier, which is known to have been carried on by members of his family until 1498 ) , such as the Fine Manner "Prophets and Sibyls" and the "Otto Prints."
End quote

(Hind then goes on to talk about the two 'Mantegna Tarocchi' series by two different workshops, the earlier he believes to be of Ferrara c.1465-70, the second to Florence c.1475-80).

Some Early Italian Engravers Before The Time Of Marcantonio By Arthur M. Hind
Published in Prints And Their Makers - Essays On Engravers And Etchers Old And Modern Edited By Fitzroy Carrington