print
- Museum number
- W,8.29
- Description
-
Ecce Homo; to right Pontius Pilate who gestures towards Jesus Christ, behind a parapet in centre, showing him to the people, with a soldier to left in profile and the Virgin fainting at lower right supported by a female attendant; after Correggio. 1587
Engraving
- Production date
- 1587
- Dimensions
-
Height: 267 millimetres
-
Width: 357 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Text from Michael Bury, "The Print in Italy 1550 - 1620", London, 2001, cat.155.)
Cardinal Enrico Gaetano to whom the print was dedicated, was the papal Legate to Bologna. In 1593, he was described as one of a group of cardinals who were putting together collections of prints (Giorgio Alario's letter of 26 March 1593, Luzio, 1913, p.273). In 1587 Agostino dedicated to him his engraved portrait of Titian (Bohlin p.152, no.145).
Agostino's engraving was his second after Correggio. The first was the Madonna of St Jerome of 1586. Correggio's work had been little treated in prints. Only Giorgio Ghisi's Mystic Marriage of St Catherine (Bartsch XV.389.11) of the early 1570s and Diana Scultori's Madonna of the Basket (Bartsch XV.440.19) of 1577, predate Agostino's (Mussini, 1995, pp. 65 and 147, no.196). The interest of the Carracci in Correggio, whose work in Parma was easily accessible from Bologna, can be documented from 1580 in two letters from Annibale in Parma addressed to Lodovico in Bologna, that were published by Malvasia (I, pp.268-70). Annibale, full of enthusiasm for the Parmesan painter, was trying to persuade Agostino to make a visit.
Agostino, although he reverses the image, has remained close to Correggio's composition. There are some very slight adjustments in expression: Christ looks much more directly out at us, and Pilate's eyes are slightly averted. A little more space has been created at the top and at the bottom, with the parapet slightly extended and straightened up so as to be parallel to the picture edge. The linear precision of the engraving gives a sculptural quality to the forms, especially notable in the polished ideal beauty of the heads of the Virgin and her attendant.
It is one of three engravings of the years 1586-87 that carry assertions of Agostino's control of the plates; the other two are the Madonna of St Jerome (Bohlin 142, with 'impressit') and the Cordons of St Francis (Bohlin 141, with 'formis'); this could suggest that in these years, Agostino was trying to establish a print business in Bologna on a more formal basis than before.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2001/2 Sep-Jan, BM, P&D, The Print in Italy 1550-1620
2002 Feb-Mar, New York, Miriam & Ira D Wallach AG, The Print in Italy
2002/3 Sep-Jan, Ottawa, NG of Canada, The Print in Italy 1550-1620
2003 Feb-Apr, Edinburgh, NG of Scotland, The Print in Italy 1550-1620
- Acquisition date
- 1799
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- W,8.29