Friday, April 7, 2017

Portrait-Prints from the Paper Museum

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Portrait of Saint Peter
derived from an ancient medal

engraving by Sebastiano di Re
1560
Royal Collection, Windsor

The majority of scholars and artists in the 16th and 17th centuries absolutely believed in the survival from the ancient world of authentic and reliable likenesses of the Biblical characters who occupied so much space in everyone's consciousness at that time  figures such as the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, and (as seen above) the Apostle Peter, traditionally identified as the founder of the Roman Catholic Church.  In the 20th and 21st centuries there were no longer any living people at all who held this belief, but its evidence nevertheless remained in circulation. The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo contained numerous series of such famous faces  mainly engravings  both ancient and modern.

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Portraits of Laura and Petrarch
engraving by Antonio Salamanca
before 1562
Royal Collection, Windsor

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Portrait of the artist Andrea Mantegna
engraving after Leonardo da Vinci
ca. 1490-1510
British Museum

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Portrait of Pope Pius III (1439-1503)
woodcut
15th century
Royal Collection, Windsor

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Portrait of the artist Marcantonio Raimondi
engraving by Pietro Stefanoni
early 17th century
Royal Collection, Windsor

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Portrait of Vasili III, Prince of Moscow
woodcut
ca. 1530
British Museum

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Portrait of Pope Gregory XV Farnese
etching by Girolamo Imperiale
ca. 1621
Royal Collection, Windsor

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Portrait of Pope Gregory XIII (1502-1585)
engraving by Agostino Carracci
late 16th century
Royal Collection, Windsor

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Portrait of Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor
engraving
ca. 1628
British Museum

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Portrait of Don Gio de Austria
engraving
ca. 1570
Royal Collection, Windsor

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Portrait of Pope Urban VII (1521-1590)
engraving by Cherubino Alberti
late 16th century
Royal Collection, Windsor

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Portrait of Pope Julius II (1443-1513)
engraving
early 16th century
Royal Collection, Windsor

Julius II (above) was the Pope who gave such spectacular commissions to Michelangelo. Paul V (below) supervised the opening of the Roman seicento under Borghese dominance. This was the period that preceded and prepared for the following phase of Roman culture  Cassiano's era  under the Barberini.

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Portrait of Pope Paul V Borghese
engraving by Giacomo Lauro
1611
Royal Collection, Windsor

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Portrait of Johann Alten
Swiss Guard and guide to antiquities of Rome

engraving by Francesco Villamena
1623
British Museum

Cassiano dal Pozzo Paper Museum
Portrait of Johann Alten
Swiss Guard and guide to antiquities of Rome

preparatory drawing by Francesco Villamena
ca. 1623
British Museum