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Vatican Frescoes

Vatican Frescoes

ANTON MARIA ZANETTI THE ELDER (1680-1767)

Moses parts the Red Sea

dated 1740

Chiaroscuro woodcut printed from three blocks | 22.5 x 34.8 cm (sheet of paper) | RCIN 853531

A chiaroscuro woodcut reproducing, in reverse, the fresco of 'Moses parts the Red Sea' painted by the workshop of Raphael (c.1517-19) in the vault of the eighth bay of the Raphael Loggia in the Vatican. Signed and dated by the printmaker along the bottom and inscribed bottom left: 'Ex Raph Urbinatis Schede'. Not in Ruland (1876).

Zanetti revived the chiaroscuro woodcut, a prevalent technique of sixteenth-century Italian printmaking. Zanetti published a collection of chiaroscuro woodcuts, primarily after works by Parmigianino, but also including some after Raphael, in the late 1720s under the title Diversarum Iconum and again in a third edition of 1749 with the title 'Raccolta di varie stampe...'. See RCINs 853407, 853424, 853429, 853437, 853457 and 853471 for other chiaroscuro woodcuts by Zanetti after Loggia frescoes.
  • Creator(s)

    Anton Maria Zanetti the Elder (1680-1767) (wood cutter)

    After a work by the workshop of Raphael (Urbino 1483-Rome 1520) (artist)

  • P

  • 22.5 x 34.8 cm (sheet of paper)

  • Added to the Prince Consort's Raphael Collection (c.1853-76)

  • Subject(s)
    • Religion & Theology
      • Religions and faiths
        • Christianity
          • Bible & Holy Scripture
            • Old Testament
  • Bibliographic reference(s)

    fig.71 (Davidson 1985 : Davidson, Bernice F. Raphael's Bible. A Study of the Vatican Logge, 1985)

    pl.129, p.171 (Dacos 2008: Dacos, N., The Loggia of Raphael: A Vatican Art Treasure, 2008)