Marcantonio was the object of one of the earliest lawsuits by an artist against those appropriating his work as their own. As Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) tells it in his Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, 4 volumes, trans. A. B. Hinds (London: Everyman's Library, 1970; the first edition was published in 1550, the revised version appeared first in 1568), 3: 68-86, Marcantonio discovered a set of Albrecht Dürer's Small Woodcut Passion in Venice, spent all of his money to purchase it, and proceeded, much to Vasari's disgust, to make engraved copies of each the pieces including Dürer's monogram. (Vasari makes it clear that he thinks everyone ought to be imitating Italians, not vice versa.) Dürer made a trip to Venice and complained to the Venetian Senate that Marcantonio was stealing his work and misrepresenting it (since Dürer had made woodcuts, not engravings). The Senate decided that since the images belonged to all of Christianity, Dürer could not claim ownership, but that his name belonged to him, and so it ordered Marcantonio not to use Dürer's monogram in his own works (3.71-73). Vasari seems to have gotten some of the details wrong—it was Dürer's Life of the Virgin that Marcantonio was publishing with Dürer's monogram, not his Small Woodcut Passion, which is never found in Marcantonio's engravings with the monogram—but the mistake is understandable, since Marcantonio did subsequently make engraved copies of the Small Woodcut Passion as well.

Ironically, Marcantonio's engravings, popular enough to go through at least three separate editions, were popular enough to draw their own copyists, presumably after Marcantonio's death c. 1527. Although I have never come acorss any mention of them in the literature on Marcantonio, we recently acquired 13 sheets after Marcantonio's engravings after Dürer's woodcuts for the Small Woodcut Passion. Six of these are in the same direction as Marcanonio's engravings; seven of them reverse the image.

Bibliography: There two volumes in The Illustrated Bartsch devoted to the work of Marcantonio and several more to his his followers. For modern criticism, see Evelyn Lincoln, The Invention of the Italian Renaissance Printmaker (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2000), Lisa Pon, Raphael, Dürer, and Marcantonio Raimondi: Copying and the Italian Renaissance Print (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2004), Innis H. Shoemaker and Elizabeth Broun, The Engravings of Marcantonio Raimondi (Lawrence KS: Spencer Museum of Art, 1981), the catalogue of a show that travelled from the Spencer Museum of Art to The Ackland Art Museum at The University of North Carolina.

In the pages that follow, we are happy to present 35 of Marcantonio's 36 engravings after Dürer's Small Woodcut Passion. All are in generally good condition, all generally have either thread margins or are cut on or just within the platemark. The plates represent typical early sixteenth-century aesthetics: sharp with a tonal range on the dark side (with a very few specified exceptions which are more richly printed); in order to accurately reproduce these plates, I had to print these as colored, not black and white, using the saturation control to match the color range of the originals. The set was clearly popular. The Illustrated Bartsch notes 3 states: State 1: the cartouche empty, no numbers elsewhere; State 2: the cartouche empty, one or more numbers outside the cartouche; State 3: the cartouche has a number in addition to the numbers outside the cartouche, often not agreeing. As one of the most important of the early 16th-century Italian engravers and a pioneer in running a large workshop that put itself at the service of one of the greatest master painters of all time, Marcantonio anticipates the great master printers of our own times like Stanley William Hayter and Kenneth Tyler. He is also a great engraver in his own right. At the moment, his prints are drastically undervalued, but we feel that his work needs to be known to understand the traffic in images in the Renaissance.

Ecce Homo. Reverse copy of Marcantonio's engraving after Dürer's woodcut in his Small Woodcut Passion, c. 1512. Very good impression on laid paper with small margins. Image size: 126x97mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Marcantonio Raimondi (Bologna 1480-1527), Ecce Homo (Bartsch 603 iii/iii). Engraving after Dürer's Small Woodcut Passion, c. 1512. Good impression on laid paper trimmed irregularly at top and within the platemark on the sides and bottom. Cartouche empty, "19" lower right. Image size: 123x98mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Pilate washes his hands after condemning Jesus. Reverse copy of Marcantonio's engraving after Dürer's woodcut in his Small Woodcut Passion, c. 1512. Very good impression on laid paper with small margins. Image size: 126x95mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Marcantonio Raimondi (Bologna 1480-1527), Pilate washes his hands after condemning Jesus (Bartsch 604 ii/iii). Engraving after Dürer's Small Woodcut Passion, c. 1512. A very good impression on laid paper trimmed on or within the platemark. Cartouche empty, "20" lower right. Image size: 131x100mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Jesus carrying the cross. Reverse copy of Marcantonio's engraving after Dürer's woodcut in his Small Woodcut Passion, c. 1512. Very good impression on laid paper with small margins. Image size: 126x98mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Marcantonio Raimondi (Bologna 1480-1527), Jesus carrying the cross (Bartsch 605 iii/iii). Engraving after Dürer's Small Woodcut Passion, c. 1512. A very good impression on laid paper trimmed on or within the platemark. "21" in cartouche. Image size: 131x100mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Saints Veronica, Peter, and Paul (Bartsch 606 ii/iii). Engraving after Marcantonio's engraving after Dürer's woodcut in his Small Woodcut Passion, c. 1512. A very good impression on laid paper with thread margins. St. Paul is on the left, St. Peter at right, and St. Veronica in the center with the sudarium (the impressions of Jesus' face on the cloth with which she wiped his face). Very good impression on laid paper with small margins. Image size: 126x98mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Marcantonio Raimondi (Bologna 1480-1527), Saints Veronica, Peter, and Paul (Bartsch 606 ii/iii). Engraving after Dürer's Small Woodcut Passion, c. 1512. A very good impression on laid paper with thread margins. Cartouche empty; "35" lower right. Image size: 125x98mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Jesus nailed to the cross. Engraving after Marcantonio's engraving after Dürer's Small Woodcut Passion, c. 1512. Very good impression on laid paper with small margins. Image size: 126x96mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Marcantonio Raimondi (Bologna 1480-1527), Jesus nailed to the cross (Bartsch 607 iii/iii). Engraving after Dürer's Small Woodcut Passion, c. 1512. A good impression on laid paper with thread margins. "22" in cartouche lower right. Image size: 130x97mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

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