Joseph kneeling in front of the Pharoah, after Raphael's Stanza di Eliodoro, from a series of 15 plates, depicting Raphael's works for the Vatican stanze and the Sistine Chapel tapestries
Original title: Joseph kneeling in front of the Pharoah, after Raphael's Stanza di Eliodoro, from a series of 15 plates, depicting Raphael's works for the Vatican stanze and the Sistine Chapel tapestries
kurzbeschreibung
Pietro Santi Bartoli's etching from 1650–70 shows Joseph prostrating himself before Pharaoh, based on Raphael's fresco in the Stanza di Eliodoro in the Vatican. The print belongs to a series of 15 that reproduced Raphael's work for the Vatican Stanze and the Sistine Chapel tapestries.
Description
Your eye is drawn first to the central figure: Joseph, bearded and wearing a headband, wrapped in a long garment that slips from his shoulder. To his left, six figures crowd together in varied poses, some looking toward him, others outward to the right. There, another clothed person kneels, also with a headband. Columns and hanging curtains frame the scene as a solemn interior. A Latin quotation about the biblical story of Joseph and Pharaoh runs along the bottom.
Context
Between 1650 and 1670, Bartoli worked on this series, which copied Raphael's frescoes in the Stanze and the cartoons for the Sistine Chapel. Such prints made Raphael's inventions available to a wider audience and were aimed at people interested in art. The series arose in the milieu of Roman collections and the antiquities trade, where Bartoli worked as a draughtsman and engraver.
Impact
The precise lines and fine gradations of shading convey the power of Raphael's wall painting. The calm, almost mirror-like distribution of the figures and the architectural setting give the print a dignified, measured tone that highlights the biblical event.
Technique
The print was made by etching: the plate was bitten with acid, creating the lines. Bartoli used fine, detailed hatching to achieve volume and spatial depth, as was common in seventeenth-century reproductive printmaking. The plate measures 10.4 × 27 cm, the sheet 23.8 × 33.8 cm.
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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)