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![[GIOVIO, Paolo (1483-1552)] and [STIMMER, Tobias (1539-1584)], A collection of 42 half-length portraits of Renaissance rulers, watercolours on paper [central Europe, probably Austria, after 1575]](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2018/CKS/2018_CKS_16018_0064_000(giovio_paolo_and_stimmer_tobias_a_collection_of_42_half-length_portrai095110).jpg?w=1)
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[GIOVIO, Paolo (1483-1552)] and [STIMMER, Tobias (1539-1584)], A collection of 42 half-length portraits of Renaissance rulers, watercolours on paper [central Europe, probably Austria, after 1575]
A 16th-century series of portraits of Renaissance rulers, including members of the Sforza, Borgia and de’ Medici families, after Tobias Stimmer’s famous woodcuts for Pietro Perna’s edition of Paolo Giovio’s Elogia Virorum Illustrium.
201 x 160mm (portraits c.130 x 100mm), i + 42 + i leaves, all portraits in a grey wash with the exception of Isabella of Aragon, in colour, each portrait labelled in a contemporary hand and numbered non-consecutively from 4401-4454 (from the erased foliation visible in the top right hand margins, and numeration on the versos of each portrait, evidently a fragment of an originally larger collection, occasional worming and spotting). Modern coloured paper over pasteboards.
Provenance: The watermark, a double-headed crowned eagle, is a close match to Briquet 312, and localises the paper stock to Salzburg, c.1575-1578 – later (19th-century?) annotations in pencil.
The portraits in the present manuscripts are near-contemporary copies after Tobias Stimmer’s woodcuts for the first edition of Paolo Giovio’s Elogia Virorum […], printed by Pietro Perna for Heinrich Petri in Basel in 1575. The Giovio series was a collection of 488 portraits of the leading men of letters, statesmen and rulers assembled by the Italian physician, historian, biographer, and prelate Paolo Giovio. The collection did not survive, but it was copied in 1552 by Cristoforo dell’Altissimo for Cosimo I de’ Medici (now at the Uffizi in Florence); copies were also made for Ferdinand II, Archduke of the Tyrol (now at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) and for Cardinal Federico Borromeo (now at the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan). Pietro Perna, the leading printer of Late Renaissance Basel, sent the artist Tobias Stimmer to Como to copy the portraits in 1569-1570 for his editions of Giovio’s Elogia, and it is from these woodcuts that the present manuscript takes inspiration.
A 16th-century series of portraits of Renaissance rulers, including members of the Sforza, Borgia and de’ Medici families, after Tobias Stimmer’s famous woodcuts for Pietro Perna’s edition of Paolo Giovio’s Elogia Virorum Illustrium.
201 x 160mm (portraits c.130 x 100mm), i + 42 + i leaves, all portraits in a grey wash with the exception of Isabella of Aragon, in colour, each portrait labelled in a contemporary hand and numbered non-consecutively from 4401-4454 (from the erased foliation visible in the top right hand margins, and numeration on the versos of each portrait, evidently a fragment of an originally larger collection, occasional worming and spotting). Modern coloured paper over pasteboards.
Provenance: The watermark, a double-headed crowned eagle, is a close match to Briquet 312, and localises the paper stock to Salzburg, c.1575-1578 – later (19th-century?) annotations in pencil.
The portraits in the present manuscripts are near-contemporary copies after Tobias Stimmer’s woodcuts for the first edition of Paolo Giovio’s Elogia Virorum […], printed by Pietro Perna for Heinrich Petri in Basel in 1575. The Giovio series was a collection of 488 portraits of the leading men of letters, statesmen and rulers assembled by the Italian physician, historian, biographer, and prelate Paolo Giovio. The collection did not survive, but it was copied in 1552 by Cristoforo dell’Altissimo for Cosimo I de’ Medici (now at the Uffizi in Florence); copies were also made for Ferdinand II, Archduke of the Tyrol (now at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) and for Cardinal Federico Borromeo (now at the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan). Pietro Perna, the leading printer of Late Renaissance Basel, sent the artist Tobias Stimmer to Como to copy the portraits in 1569-1570 for his editions of Giovio’s Elogia, and it is from these woodcuts that the present manuscript takes inspiration.
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