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FRANCESCO VILLAMENA
(Assisi 1564 - Rome 1624)
FOUR ENGRAVINGS DEPICTING ITINERANT WORKERS IN ROME, ca. 1600

A) INK SELLER: the full sheet 359 x 232 mm, to the platemark 319 x 202.Provenance: on the verso the mark of the Brugger collection, Lugt 4961.
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B) GARDENER: the full sheet 372 x 250 mm, to the platemark 321 x 201. Provenance: on the verso the mark of the Brugger collection, Lugt 4961.
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C) BLIND MAN: trimmed to the platemark, 323 x 206 mm.
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D) ROASTED CHESTNUT SELLER: trimmed to the platemark, glued onto a backing sheet; 323 x 208 mm.
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Price: 1.750,00 €

Italian painter, draughtsman and engraver, who arrived in Rome from Assisi during the papacy of Sixtus V. He was a pupil of Cornelis Cort, whose engravings he copied, and was associated in his youth with Agostino Carracci. His early dated prints are after designs by Correggio, Ventura Salimbeni, and Antonio Tempesta. In 1596 Villamena was commissioned by pope Clement VIII for a number of engravings of religious subjects. He made few original engravings but reproduced designs of artists including Raphael, Paolo Veronese, Federico Barocci, Girolamo Muziano and Giulio Romano. Villamena was a virtuoso of the burin, a very skilled technician, who knew all the possibilities of the stroke and the crossing of lines, making use of a clear and vigorous sign.