Léonard GAULTIER: The New Testament - 1576/1580

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Collection of 93 plates : 92 plates (1 twice) from the series of 108 plates depicting scenes from the New Testament.

Engraving, each c. 61 x 61 mm. IFF 13 to 120.

The plates, printed on laid paper, are pasted on the recto of sheets of heavy laid paper binded together (18th century binding). Some explanations are written on some pages opposite the images.

Very fine impressions in excellent condition; thread margins around the platemark. Some rubbing on the binding.

This is a very rare series by Léonard Gautier. The collections we have at our disposal are usually incomplete : they only present 50, 84, 87 or 99 of the 108 plates kept at the National Library. Pierre-Jean Mariette counted only 104 in his Abecedario (p. 287).

This series is part of the first prints that Léonard Gaultier made when he was fifteen, when he became an apprentice in the workshop of Jean Rabel. Each print bears his monogram. The dates of completion engraved on some of the plates (1576, 1577, 1578, 1579, 1580) show the progress of the young engraver.

The last plate of the suite bears the inscription ACHEVE LE XX OCTOB. AETATIS XIX 1580 (completed on October 20, 1580, at the age of 19). Plate after plate, the level of refinement in the details and the balanced compositions often successfully compensate for mistakes in proportions or a shaky outline, but these defects have a certain charm.

One of Gaultier's inspirations was pointed out by Emmanuelle Brugerolles and David Guillet in their study published in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts (vol. 135, 2000): it is a series of anonymous woodcuts that accompany the Tapisserie de l'Eglise chrétienne et catholique (Tapestry of the Christian and Catholic Church) by Gilles Corrozet, published in Paris in 1564. This series influenced numerous other artists like Virgil Solis or Maerten van Heemskerk. Other plates are pastiches or copies of prints by Dürer. Gaultier faithfully copied the Prodigal Son Among the Swines, down to the minutest details, at the same time widening the composition to make it fit the square format of his suite. Another plate is a pastiche of Saint Jerome In His Study : the composition is the same and many details have been kept (the pillow, the hourglass, the shelves), but Jesus is now sitting in Saint Jerome's armchair, behind the desk; on the desk Gaultier replaced the Christ on the Cross with a candleholder, while Nicodemus, who has come to receive Jesus' teachings, sits in the second armchair that Dürer had left empty.