• Title : Holy Family with St. Anne, St. Paul and Lute-Playing Angel
• Size: 13 1/2in x 9 1/2in (345mm x 240mm)
• Condition: (A+) Fine Condition
• Date : 1870
• Ref #:  22408

Description:
This fine, original antique wood-cut print of Holy Family with St Paul by Jacapo de Barbari in the early 16th century was faithfully re-engraved and published by Charles Amand-Durand in 1870.
These beautiful re-engravings of classic and historical wood-cuts were painstakingly re-issued by Amand-Durand in Paris in the mid to late 19th century. Such is the quality of his re-strikes that Durands prints are now in major institutional collections such a the Louvre, National Gallery, The Met and many other famous Galleries. Please see below for further background on Amand-Durand.

General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: -
Colors used: -
General color appearance: -
Paper size: - 14in x 9 1/2in (350mm x 240mm)
Plate size: - 8in x 6in (205mm x 1530mm)
Margins: - Min 1in (25mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None

Background: 
Jacopo de Barbari sometimes known or referred to as de Barbari, de Barberi, de Barbari, Barbaro, Barberino, Barbarigo or Barberigo (1460/70 – 1516), was an Italian painter and print-maker with a highly individual style. He moved from Venice to Germany in 1500, thus becoming the first Italian Renaissance artist of stature to work in Northern Europe. His few surviving paintings (about twelve) include the first known example of trompe l oeil since antiquity. His twenty-nine engravings and three very large woodcuts were also highly influential.
His earliest documented work is his huge (1.345 x 2.818 metres, from six blocks) and impressive woodcut aerial view Map of Venice, for which a privilege was granted to its publisher in 1500, recording that the work had taken three years. This clearly drew on the work of many surveyors, but was a spectacular feat nonetheless, and caused a considerable stir from the first. It was later updated by others to reflect major new building projects in a second state of the print.
Apart from the Map of Venice, he produced two other woodcuts, both of men and satyrs, which were the largest and most impressive figurative woodcuts yet produced, and which established the Italian tradition of fine, large, woodcuts for the following decades. These may have also been produced before 1500; they are clearly strongly influenced by Mantegna.
By the time the Map of Venice was published de\' Barbari had already left for Germany, where he met Dürer, who he may have already known from Dürer\'s first Italian trip (a passage in a letter of Dürer\'s is ambiguous). They discussed human proportion, not obviously one of de\' Barbari\'s strengths, but Dürer was evidently fascinated by what he had to say, though he recorded that de\' Barberi had not told him everything he knew:
...I find no one who has written anything about how to make canon of human proportions except for a man named Jacob, born in Venice and a charming painter. He showed me a man and a woman which he had made according to measure, so that I would now rather see what he meant than behold a new kingdom... Jacobus did not want to show his principles to me clearly, that I saw well. (From an unpublished draft of the Introduction to Dürer\'s own book on human proportions)
Twenty years later Dürer tried unsuccessfully to get the Archduchess Margaret, Habsburg Regent of the Netherlands, to give him a manuscript book she had on the subject by de Barbari, by then dead; the book has not survived.
His style is related to his possible master, Alvise Vivarini and to Giovanni Bellini, but has a languorous quality all its own. Apart from Dürer, the influence of Mantegna\'s technique also appears in what are probably the earlier engravings, done around the turn of the century, with parallel hatching. His engravings are mostly small, showing just a few figures. Truculent satyrs feature in several prints; there are a number of mythological subjects, including two Sacrifices to Priapus.
The earlier prints show figures with small heads and somewhat shapeless bodies, with sloping shoulders and thick torsos supported by slender legs — also seen in his paintings. Probably from a middle period come several nudes, the most famous being Apollo and Diana, St Sebastian and the Three Bound Captives. In these his ability to organise the whole composition has greatly improved.
In a final group, the style becomes more Italianate, and the compositions more complex. These have an enigmatic, haunting atmosphere, and a very refined technique. Levenson has proposed that they date from his period in the Netherlands and were influenced by the young Lucas van Leyden.