Nikolaus SOLIS (active c. 1542/1584): Vertumnus and Pomona

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Etching and engraving, 427 x 250 mm. Passavant 16, Andresen 16. Hollstein 47, 2nd state/2.

Impression of the 2nd state (of 2) with the monogram. Dieter Beaujean (Hollstein) reports a single impression of the 1st state, kept in Berlin.

Very fine impression printed on watermarked laid paper (letter B surmounted by a flower). Good general condition. A horizontal printing crease in the centre; small restorations in the upper corners, three very small restorations on the left edge.

Provenance: Franz Rechberger (1771 - 1841), painter, engraver and curator of the von Fries Cabinet and the Albertina, Vienna: his handwritten mark written on the back in pen and ink, followed by the date 1799 (Lugt 2133). The sheet also bears the stamped mark of the British Museum (Lugt 301), as well as the stamped mark of the duplicates of the British Museum authorising their release (Lugt 305). The handwritten numbers inscribed above the first of the two British Museum marks indicate the date on which the impression entered their collections (probably 27/5/1850).

Very rare. One impression is kept at the British Museum, from the Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode collection (acquired in 1799). Dieter Beaujean reports, in addition to the London impression, two other impressions of the 2nd state (kept in Dresden and Rotterdam). One impression is reported by Passavant in the catalogue of the 1861 Munich sale of the Eisenhart collection, no. 669. It is described there as rare.

The monogram of Nikolaus Solis appears on the crossbar of the fence, on which two female geniuses are leaning. They are listening to Vertumnus, the god of gardens, disguised as an old woman, extolling the joys of love to the nymph Pomona, whom she has so far rejected.

The influence of Antonio Fantuzzi's etching Vertumnus and Pomona is clearly evident here. Fantuzzi uses a composition by Rosso Fiorentino that no longer exists, painted in Pomona's pavilion in Fontainebleau. In Solis' version, the figure of Vertumnus is very similar to that in Fantuzzi's print. We also find the elegant pergolas of the garden, Cupid and his arrows, as well as the naked winged figure sitting on the ground in the foreground. The two winged putti in Fantuzzi's print have, however, been replaced by female figures. But it is above all the overall composition that has been modified, changing from a square format to a surprising vertical format that gives a monumental place to the architecture and a horizon to the scene.

Léon Davent's Garden of Pomona , which uses a composition by Primaticcio also painted in the Pavillon de Pomone, may also have been a source of inspiration for Solis.