Tempesta, Antonio (Florence 1555 – Rome 1630). Reptile Hunt of Natives. In front five of them attacking four animals with attributes of dragons with firebrands and clubs. In the background a fifth one devours assumedly an antelope while a six one wound around a tree craves for a group of further two-horns standing in water. Etching by Egbert Jansz (? late 16th century). 9.3 x 14.8 cm.
From the collection EK (not in Lugt) with its round stamp on the back, almost identical with the mark CK (L. 583) of the Carl König Collection, Vienna, known for paintings, drawings, and objects d’art. – No. 6 of the 18-sheet collection with repeated numbers by a contemporary, presumably Netherlandish copyist available here with provenance EK on uniformly fine, wide-margined laid paper, partly – as here – with watermark Amsterdam coat of arms flanked on one side by lion. Below overwhelmingly with wide white platemark with just the number at the right, what points to
early impressions before the letter .
The more so as in the few cases of only narrow margin the number appears directly in the image itself.
Highly instructive and also painterly sheet
transferring the reports on far countries to the European imagination as they were published as sets of 27 (Latin) and 25 sheets (German) resp. by the de Brys in Frankfort between 1590 + 1630/34 and worked after one of the numerous Tempesta sets, e.g. the equal-sized Primo libro di Caccie varie (“This set was nicely copied, too”, Nagler), the collector’s reference to the first/second of the totally four Christoffel van Sichems (c. 1546-1624 and c. 1581 – before 1658 resp.) under providential inclusion of the contemporary Karel, too, seems not plausible based on the knowledge of their work here. More interesting in this regard should be Egbert Jansz, little known in his circumstances, of whom de Brys in Frankfort/Main published a collection “Icones Venantum Species Varias … per Antonium Tempestinum” in 1598 which Schwerdt I, 266 lists with 11 sheets, Thieme-Becker with 12 and Wurzbach with only 6 sheets. Not impossible that there are even more. These with 12 x 17 cm somewhat larger, however, and without numbering. Otherwise Schwerdt: Egbert Jansz was perhaps the best of those engravers who reproduced these and similar hunting scenes by Tempesta.
Offer no. 28,574 / EUR 99. (c. US$ 135.) + shipping
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(Mr. M. M., June 13, 2006)