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Lot 87 Property from the Collection of Ulrich and Alfred Ochsenbein
NICCOLÒ BOLDRINI (ACTIVE CIRCA 1530-70) AFTER TITIAN (CIRCA 1488-1576)
Caricature of the Laocoön
Closed29 January 2019
Price Realised
USD 2,500
More Information
Specialist note
The print is a caricature of the famous Laocoön group, excavated and unearthed in 1506 near Nero's Domus Aurea in Rome, which had a great impact on Renaissance, Mannerist and Baroque art.
It is not clear what prompted Titian to make a drawing of a simian version of the Laocoön, of which he himself owned a cast. Perhaps he was just exasperated by reverence for the famous Hellenistic sculpture amongst his fellow artists and the educated public, and saw a risk of artists 'aping' classical art rather than studying it as source of inspiration and innovation.
Titian's drawing is sadly lost, as is the vast majority of his corpus as a draughtsman, due to the dissipation of his workshop material after his death in 1576. His idea however survives in the present woodcut by the vicentino Niccolò Boldrini. It marks an important moment in Boldrini's career between his close relationship with Titian and his later, more independent development as a woodcutter.
It is not clear what prompted Titian to make a drawing of a simian version of the Laocoön, of which he himself owned a cast. Perhaps he was just exasperated by reverence for the famous Hellenistic sculpture amongst his fellow artists and the educated public, and saw a risk of artists 'aping' classical art rather than studying it as source of inspiration and innovation.
Titian's drawing is sadly lost, as is the vast majority of his corpus as a draughtsman, due to the dissipation of his workshop material after his death in 1576. His idea however survives in the present woodcut by the vicentino Niccolò Boldrini. It marks an important moment in Boldrini's career between his close relationship with Titian and his later, more independent development as a woodcutter.