16th Century School of Fontainebleau Engraving

Name: 16th Century School of Fontainebleau Engraving
Brand: Master F.G.
Price: 4500 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

This 16th century French engraving illustrates an episode in the Trojan War – although the actual one illustrated is in question. According to recent scholarship, it depicts the corpse the hoary Trojan warrior Hector being carried into the walled city of Troy. But according to tradition, it depicts the wounded Trojan princeling Paris (who started the war) being carried back in. Favoring the former interpretation is that the episode appears in Homer’s Iliad. Favoring the later is that the comely young man seems very much alive. The scene is presented theatrically. Feet scuffle along the edge of a stage, and the leading man looks at us with bedroom eyes through tousled locks. Dead or alive, his dead weight is shouldered by a warrior with an improbably balletic lift of leg -- one that should send both crashing to the ground. Such archness is typical of Mannerism, or the late Renaissance. In any case, the print bears the engraver’s initials “GR.F”, and the inscription “a Fontana.Bleo. Bol.”, which a 16th century viewer would take to mean that the image depicted was painted “at Fontainebleau,” after the work of the “Bolognese” painter Francesco Primaticcio, the Italian artist from that Italian city, who found fame and fortune at the court of Fountainebleau, the seat of King Francis I of France. Francis summoned Primaticcio there in 1534. Between 1541 and 1544 the artist frescoed the barrel-vaulted ceiling of the Porte Dorée, the ceremonial entrance to palace’s courtyard, where he painted this scene, and a few others, including Hercules being dressed as a woman (the taste at court was nothing if not kinky). All of the scenes conformed to an obscure iconographic program that promoted the king, and celebrating his reign. Not incidentally, at the time, a legend gained traction that Frankus, a mythological warrior, had established the French kingdom after fleeing fallen Troy. Who engraved Primaticcio’s scene is a mystery. In the 19th century a group of stylistically related prints, bearing the initials R G F, were identified as the work of an engraver who was then christened Master F. G. It was posited that he may have been Francois Gentil, a Frenchman who worked at Fontainebleau, and to whom no paintings or drawings could be attributed. Then it was pointed out that the F isn’t an initial but an abbreviation for fecit, which is Latin for “he made it.” That would suggest his initials were G R. Then it was posited that he was Guido Ruggieri, an Italian who also worked there, and to whom no other works could be attributed. And so the jury remains out, on both the subject of the print, and the identity of the engraver.

Creator:

Master F.G. (Artist)

Dimensions:

Height: 12.5 in (31.75 cm)Width: 17.5 in (44.45 cm)Depth: 2 in (5.08 cm)

Style:

Renaissance (Of the Period)

Materials and Techniques:

Paper

Place of Origin:

France

Period:

16th Century