Object Description
Per R.M.Light & Co., Inc. (Robert Light) 4/24/2010:
This interesting and possibly unique etching has in the past been attributed to Caracciolo, partly on the basis of a supposed monogram lower left which was thought to resemble that on the one known print by this
painter. It is of the young "St. John, the Baptist in the wilderness" (see Diana de Grazia Bohlin "Prints and related Drawings by the Caracci Family" Washington, D.C: National Gallery of Art, 1979, cat. no R2). However, to Jonathan Bober, the "odd syntax and bristly hand" of the present print is identical to that of
Giuseppe Caletti (ca. 1600-1660) for whom, inter alia, see Reed and Wallace "Italian Etchers of the Italian Renaissance & Baroque", cat. no. 68. Bober senses that on stylistic grounds, and as the only print in his oeuvre after another artist, this would be an early work of Caletti, and an interesting and valuable addition to
the body of his work, most of which is anyway extremely rare. (See Bury "The Print in Italy, 1550-1620" pg. 48 for mention of printing on colored papers during this period. The paper used for this
impression gives a fine night effect. Caracci's painting is in the Pinacotecca Nazionale, Bologna.
