POLIDORO DA CARAVAGGIO (1492-1543)
Polidoro da Caravaggio (1492-1543)
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Vase is etched by Aegidius Sadeler
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Aegidius Sadeler: (1570-1629)
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Aegidius Sadeler, also known as Egidio or as Gilles, was a painter, printmaker and an important Mannerist, certainly the most important member of the dynasty of Sadeler. He was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1570. His family moved to Cologne in 1579 and they lived there until 1588. Then to Monaco until finally travelling to Italy. He worked in Rome in 1593, then to Verona and probably in Venice. His early engravings were mostly copies of works by Albrecht Durer and paintings by recognizable Italian artists such as Tintoretto, Barocci, Caravaggio Northern painters who worked there, such as Paul Bril and Denys Calvaert. After a journey to Naples, he moved to Prague in 1597, where he spent the rest of his life, mostly employed at the court of Rudolf II, with Bartholomeus Spranger, of which he became the best translator. Sadeler lived the rest of his career out in Prague even after Rudolf II died. He taught a few young artists while there until he passed away in 1629.
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Info on the plate:
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The plates are etched and engraved by Aegidius Sadeler. British: “The vases are derived from a series that had been painted by Polidoro above the first floor windows of the Palazzo Milesi in the via della Maschera d'Oro in Rome. Polidoro designed and executed a whole series of elaborate painted schemes for the decoration of palace and house façades in Rome in the period 1520-27. They were painted in grisaille to imitate sculpture and reflected contemporary ideas about how such buildings would have been decorated in antiquity. The subject matter was intended to evoke the ancient world. Many of these frescoes became very famous and were much copied, not least because their position made them very vulnerable to the elements and their life-expectancy was short.
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