Prints in an Age of Artistry: Selections from a Private Collection of 16th- and 17th-century Italian Prints March 11, 2009 - June 14, 2009

Printmaking in 16- and 17-century Italy in all its forms is at the core of this exhibition, from painterly etching to reproductive engraving and chiaroscuro woodcut. Culled from the holdings of a private collector with a discriminating eye combined with a deep knowledge of prints, the exhibition surveys work by Italian artists as well as Dutch and French artists who worked in Italy, including Parmagianino, Annibale Carracci, Benedetto Castiglione, Pieter van Laer and Jacques Callot.

The exhibition emphasizes the rare and unique working proofs and states that form a particular focus of the collector’s sensibility. This in turn enables a discussion about the working practices of printmakers in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, as well as the choices and possibilities open to a collector as s/he decides what direction to take the collection in. A variety of subject matter and techniques also provides the opportunity to survey the role of prints as conveyors of information and as active agents in the explosion of visual literacy in the 16th and 17th centuries; to compare the development of etching against the background of so-called “reproductive” engraving; as well as the role of prints as teaching tools, in the artist’s studio, library, and beyond.