Sunday, September 10, 2017

Early Reproductive Prints after Pordenone

Odoardo Fialetti after Pordenone
Venus
before 1627
engraving after fresco figure on the façade of Palazzo Tinghe, Udine
British Museum

Odoardo Fialetti after Pordenone
Diana
before 1627
engraving after fresco figure on the façade of Palazzo Tinghe, Udine
British Museum

Odoardo Fialetti after Pordenone
Pan
before 1627
engraving after fresco figure on the façade of Palazzo Tinghe, Udine
British Museum

Odoardo Fialetti after Pordenone
Mars
before 1627
engraving after fresco figure on the façade of Palazzo Tinghe, Udine
British Museum

Giovanni Antonio Pordenone (1483/4-1539) left behind many much-admired paintings (and especially frescoes) in Venice and its territories and satellites. Scholars suggest measuring the strength of Pordenone's influence by the abundance of reproductive prints created and published by many hands throughout the first century after his death.  Many of these prints, like the four above, have become the best surviving records of long-lost originals.  Pordenone painted his large beautiful reclining Classical figures on the outer walls of a palace in Udine. One relatively recent observer claimed that faint shadow-shapes of Venus, Diana and Pan remained discernible  to a willing eye  on the façade of Palazzo Tinghe, but that the space once occupied by Mars had been obliterated. The four images below, by contrast, represent Pordenone frescoes that still exist, on walls inside the church of Santa Maria di Camp in Piacenza.

Oliviero Gatti after Pordenone
God the Father creating the world
1615
engraving after church fresco in Piacenza
British Museum

Oliviero Gatti after Pordenone
Judith with the Head of Holofernes
1606
engraving after church fresco in Piacenza
British Museum

Oliviero Gatti after Pordenone
Sacrifice of Isaac
1625
engraving after church fresco in Piacenza
British Museum

Oliviero Gatti after Pordenone
God the Father creating Adam
1625
engraving after church fresco in Piacenza
British Museum

Below, another group of four engravings from a Biblical fresco cycle painted by Pordenone in the cloister of San Stefano in Venice.  These were frequently copied, which was fortunate  "destroyed or detached" is the way the British Museum accounts for the state of these Pordenone frescoes now.

Giacomo Piccini after Pordenone
Expulsion of Adam and Eve
ca. 1656
engraving after cloister fresco in Venice
British Museum

Giacomo Piccini after Pordenone
Cain killing Abel
ca. 1656
engraving after cloister fresco in Venice
British Museum

Giacomo Piccini after Pordenone
David and Goliath
ca. 1656
engraving after cloister fresco in Venice
British Museum

Giacomo Piccini after Pordenone
Entombment
ca. 1656
engraving after cloister fresco in Venice
British Museum

Nicolo Boldrini after Pordenone
Milo of Croton attacked by a lion while his hands are trapped in a tree
ca. 1530-70
chiaroscuro woodcut (key-block only) after Pordenone painting
British Museum

Nicolo Boldrini after Pordenone
Leaping Horseman (Marcus Curtius)
ca. 1566
chiaroscuro woodcut (key-block only)
after fresco façade in Venice
British Museum

Nicolo Boldrini after Pordenone
Leaping Horseman (Marcus Curtius)
ca. 1566
chiaroscuro woodcut after fresco façade in Venice
British Museum