print
- Museum number
- V,8.25
- Description
-
The battle of Cartagena; Roman soldiers in foreground storming a large military fortification with rounded towers at left using ladders. 1539
Engraving
- Production date
- 1539
- Dimensions
-
Height: 414 millimetres
-
Width: 550 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Not Carthage as suggested in some catalogues.
The engraving after a lost drawing by Giulio Romano for tapestries for King Francis I showing the Triumph of Scipio Africanus following the capture of Cartagena.
Text from Bartrum 1995
Literature: Bartsch, 86; Landau 93; Hollstein, 76 IV
This engraving provides important evidence of Pencz's association with Giulio Romano (c. 1499-1546) in Mantua when he visited Italy in 1539-40. It is a close copy after a drawing of a composition by Giulio, now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. The composition was designed in connection with a famous series of tapestries of the 'History of Scipio' commissioned by Francis I, King of France. The series tells of the feats of Scipio Africanus (c.234-c.183 BC), the Roman general whose victories in Spain and north Africa against the Carthaginians brought the Second Punic War to an end. This scene shows his moment of capture of Carthagena (New Carthage) in Spain. The cartoons for the series were executed by Romano and his assistant Giovanni Francesco Penni in 1531-3 and then sent to a weaver in Brussels, where the tapestries were completed in 1535. The tapestries remained in the French Royal collection until 1797, when they were destroyed so that the gold and silver in the cloth could be extracted. A number of extant preparatory drawings were produced in connection with the project, at least one of which was evidently still in Romano's studio in Mantua at the time of Pencz's visit (see B. Jestaz and R. Bacou, 'Jules Romain: l'Histoire de Scipion, tapisseries et dessins', exh. cat., Paris, Grand Palais, 1978, p. 34 and passim).
The very large scale of this print makes Pencz's achievement all the more remarkable when it is compared with the small size of the plates he usually engraved, and it was singled out for particular praise by Joachim von Sandrart in 1675 (Sandrart, p. 78). Pencz's complete mastery of the technique is most clearly seen in the subtle way he engraves varying thicknesses of lines and dots to different degrees of depth, in order to achieve a strong contrast between foreground and background. The print was published in Italy where the plate remained. The first state has only Pencz's monogram and inscription on it; the reference to Giulio Romano was added in the second. It was then published by Antonio Salamanca (active 1530-c.1562) in Rome, where the plate apparently remained until the seventh state was published by Carlo Losi in 1773.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1995 Jun-Oct, BM, 'German Renaissance Prints, 1490-1550', no.110
- Associated events
- Associated Event: Capture of Cartagena 209 BC
- Acquisition date
- 1799
- Acquisition notes
- 'CMC 1784' is written on the verso not in Cracherode's hand but a later one; it must have been copied from an earlier autograph inscription when the print was conserved at some time in the XIXc.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- V,8.25
