MARIO CARTARO (ACTIVE CIRCA 1560-1620) AFTER FTER FEDERICO ZUCCARI (CIRCA 1540-1640)

This rare print made by Mario Cartaro, engraver, publisher and dealer from Viterbo and mostly active in Rome, is undescribed by Bartsch but listed in Nagler's Monogrammisten (8) as after Federico Zuccari. A recurring motif of Federico and his brother Taddeo's production, the Dead Christ held by Archangels is the subject of a painting in Galleria Borghese, Rome (inv. no. 398), which shows the body of Christ in a similar pose. A red chalk drawing at the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven (inv. no. 1972.94), appears to be the exact model for the engraving. It is dated circa 1563, at the time when Zuccari was working in Venice. The purpose of this sketch has not been determined but it may have been intended as a model for this print, possibly for a Venetian print publisher such as Ferrando Bertelli, with whom Cartaro was collaborating at the time.