Marcellus Provenzalis
1623
Medium
Engraving on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Plate: 14.4 × 11.2 cm (5 11/16 × 4 7/16 in.); Sheet: 16.8 × 13.7 cm (6 5/8 × 5 7/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
109034
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The Roman painter and engraver Ottavio Leoni transformed his famous group of highly finished chalk portraits into hundreds of prints. These amount to a compendium of important artists in early-17th-century Rome. Like Giovanni Baglione (1920.2303), Leoni’s portrait of Marcellus Provenzalis is a keen characterization of an artist. This engraving is among Leoni’s early prints and betrays his immature, slightly awkward cross-hatching.
About the Artist
Ottavio Leoni · 1578–1630
Ottavio Leoni (c. 1578–1630) was a Roman portraitist whose incisive chalk drawings captured the faces of some of the most celebrated figures of his age. Born in Rome, Leoni trained in the city's vibrant artistic environment during the era of the Counter-Reformation, developing a speciality in portraiture at a time when likenesses of cardinals, poets, and nobles were in high demand. He became close...