print
- Museum number
- V,8.76
- Description
-
Tarquinius Priscus cutting the Whetsone; after Polidoro da Caravaggio. 1545
Engraving
- Production date
- 1545
- Dimensions
-
Height: 243 millimetres
-
Width: 398 millimetres (trimmed and damaged)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The print has sometimes been attributed to Beatrizet (Johann G. A. Frenzel 'Catalogue Raisonne Des Estampes du Cabinet de Feu Madame La comtesse D'Einsiedel', 1833, vol I, p. 86, no. 834; Passavant, vol.iv, p.121, no.119) but the engraving style is not at all similar to his hand. Darrel Crumpacker (email 4 October 2009) pointed out the similarity between this print and another signed by Michelle Lucchese depicting the auspicious birds appearing when Rome was being built (Romulus tilling the foundations of Rome; W,3.15). The same birds appear in both prints. Additionally, other prints signed by Lucchese are engraved in the same manner (for example 1948,0227.3). The attribution to Lucchese was independently suggested by Antony Griffiths in May 2009 when the print was catalogued (pencil annotation on verso of print).
See Marabottini 1969, p.370, with a possible link with a lost façade on Monte Citorio. The print is a peculiar assemblage of two impressions on two sheets, the lower (inferior) one with the text, the upper (superior) one with the text cut off and the edges roughly torn before being laid down on the one below.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1753
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- V,8.76
