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Artist: Mantegna Tarocchi by Amand Durand
Title: Rhetorica (Rhetoric) (Rhetorica XIII)
Medium: Antique hand pulled copper plate engraving on laid paper after the 1400's original by master engraver Amand Durand.
Year: c. 1880 Reference: Bartsch XIII.131, Hollstein 65 Condition: Excellent Dimensions: Image Size 3 3/4 x 6 7/8 inches.
Framed dimensions: Approximately 13 x 16 inches
Framing: This piece has been professionally matted and framed using all new materials.
Additional notes:
Also known as the Tarocchi Cards, Tarocchi in the style of Mantegna, Baldini Cards, are two different sets each of fifty 15th-century Italian old master prints in engraving, by two different unknown artists. The sets are known as the E-series Tarocchi Cards and the S-series Tarocchi Cards (or E series, e-series etc.), and their artists are known as the “Master of the E-series Tarocchi” and the “Master of the S-series Tarocchi”. This example is E Series Number 23.
Extra Information:
Whole-length female figure, frontal view; wearing a crown and holding a sword in her right hand; on either side of her a genius blowing a trumpet; after the so-called Tarocchi Cards of Mantegna. Rhetoric teaches how to speak in a flowery and elegant way.
Artist Biography:
Andrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son-in-law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g. by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality. His flinty, metallic landscapes and somewhat stony figures give evidence of a fundamentally sculptural approach to painting. He also led a workshop that was the leading producer of prints in Venice before 1500. Mantegna is known for the linear sharpness and rigorous attention to detail of his art. Mantegna also stands out among Italian Renaissance painters for his complete dedication to classical antiquity. At an early age the artist was apprenticed to the painter Francesco Squarcione, who later adopted him. However, the young Mantegna soon left his master's studio for an independent career that began when, in 1448, he was awarded part of the commission for the fresco decoration of the Ovetari chapel in the Church of the Eremitani, Padua (now mostly destroyed). Perhaps the single most significant influence on Mantegna's style was the sculpture of Donatello in Padua. Also important was the luminous art of Giovanni Bellini, whose sister, Nicolosia, married Mantegna in 1453. In 1459, persuaded by the Marquis Lodovico Gonzaga, Mantegna moved to Mantua. With the exception of a stay in Rome in 1488-1490, Mantegna spent the rest of his life in the service of three generations of Gonzaga patrons in Mantua. He died there in 1506 as one of the most highly respected artists of the Renaissance. As official painter, Mantegna's reputation reflected positively on the status of the patrons for whom he executed his greatest works. The famous Camera degli Sposi, or Camera Picta, in the ducal palace in Mantua (1465-1474), is his most significant commission for Marquis Lodovico. The innovative spatial construction of the frescoes, particularly the oculus in the ceiling, had a profound effect on Correggio who, though probably too young to have been a pupil, must have studied Mantegna's works very closely. The dignified yet engaging family portraits on the walls of the Camera Picta also had a strong impact on other artists. Lodovico's grandson Francesco II Gonzaga was probably the patron of Mantegna's series of monumental canvases of the Triumphs of Caesar, now at Hampton Court. Though quite damaged, they are key examples of Mantegna's use of the technique of distemper on canvas. Mantegna's religious works reflect the range of his patron's needs from small devotional paintings to great altarpieces--such as the Madonna della Vittoria (Musée du Louvre, Paris), painted for Francesco Gonzaga in 1496. While Mantegna must have had a large workshop to help with his numerous commissions, he had few pupils of note: Bonsignori and Caroto are usually cited, in addition to the lesser talent of his son, Francesco. Mantegna's influence was wide, but nowhere more so than in the field of engraving, which he raised to a high art.
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