Raphael
1650/51
Medium
Etching on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Plate: 25.6 × 18.3 cm (10 1/8 × 7 1/4 in.); Sheet: 26 × 18.8 cm (10 1/4 × 7 7/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
80083
Art Historical Context
Wenceslaus Hollar’s 1650/51 etching presents a sensitive portrait of the High Renaissance master Raphael, capturing the artist’s refined features and gaze. Created on ivory paper, the print Hollar’s remarkable skill translating painted likenesses into the linear language of etching. As a Bohemian-born artist spent much of his career in, Hollar specialized in reproductive prints that brought celebrated European artworks to new audiences across the continent. This sheet belongs to a broader seventeenth-century interest in preserving and circulating images of Renaissance masters. By rendering Ra...
About the Artist
Wenceslaus Hollar · 1607–1677
Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) was a prolific Bohemian etcher who became one of the most accomplished printmakers of the seventeenth century. Born in Prague, he trained under Matthäus Merian in Frankfurt before entering the service of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, in 1636. Hollar spent most of his career in England, where he produced approximately 2,740 etchings documenting an extraordinary range...