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#40
Schelte Adams Bolswert (Dutch 1586-1659) Marriage of the Virgin after Peter Paul Rubens engraving, after 1633 20" x 24" |
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the success of such engravers as Marcantonio Raimondi, reproductive engraving
became a vehicle for painters who wished to expose their works to a wider
audience. Marcantonio worked closely with Raphael in the early yearsof
the sixteenth century and made many engravings after the master's original
paintings or drawings. The result of this effort was the increased recognition
of Raphael's art not only in Italy, but in northern Europe as well.
Nearly a century later, Peter Paul Rubens, working in the city of Antwerp, saw the benefit of forming a link with a school of reproductive engravers. Certainly influenced by the relationship between Marcantonio and Raphael, Rubens was also witness to the growing power of the print. Due to the demand of more worldly customers, prints began to flood the north in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. To exploit this demand and preserve his fame, Rubens secured about a dozen engravers from Haarlem who were trained by Hendrick Goltzius. Not liking the linear style, however, he retrained them to focus more on pictorial effect. He wanted the print to convey, as nearly as possible, the same tonality as his paintings. Rubens was a strict, if not autocratic, supervisor of his engravers. He personally guided the production of modelli, which were drawings or oil-sketches after his paintings, designed for the reproductive engravers to follow. When proofs were pulled from the plates, Rubens would also be on hand to personally correct certain qualities, especially the engraver's translation of tonality from the painting to the print. In all, nearly 700 prints were made after Rubens in the seventeenth century. Until the nineteenth century, a print after his original work was often the only way that a painting was known. However, because of this practice of reproduction, engraving suffered a setback in its development. It was seen as a medium of reproduction, whereas etching gained new ground as a medium of creation. Schelte Adams Bolswert was one of two brothers who worked for Rubens. Schelte, however, was not trained by Rubens and did not begin to work for him until his brother, Boetius, died in 1633. The Marriage of the Virgin is a large, elegant print. The original canvas by Rubens is lost, but it has been suggested there may have been one in the Convent of St. Elizabeth in Brussels. The theme, as stated on the print itself, is taken from the first chapter of Luke. In Bolswert's representation of the holy union of Mary and Joseph, the priest is in the act of placing the marriage ring upon the finger of Mary, as angels sprinkle garlands on the couple. The engraving achieves a painterly effect, especially in the rich variations of textures. References
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