Gian Jacopo CARAGLIO. 1505-1565

Contention between the Muses and the Pierids.about 1550

Burin, mm. 222x285. small margin. on the foot ‘Ausae cum Musis committere proelia voce victae nunc volitant immitantes omnia picae’. Stamp of collection in the lower left margin. Signature of old provenience on the verso, not readable. Good copy, fine specimen on laid paper.

Print depicting the singing competition between the Muses and the Pierids next to a stream with trees.Giorgio Vasari mentions this print as the third work engraved by Jacopo Caraglio in Rome on a design, now lost, of Rosso Fiorentino. Carroll believes, instead, that the work may be based on Raphael's preparatory drawings for Parnassus, which Rosso probably knew through the etchings of Marcantonio Raimondi. The Latin inscription in the margin refers to the episode narrated by Ovid in the Metamorphoses, Book V, 294 - 678.Bartsch XV.89. The illustrated Bartsch v. 28, n. 53 p. 192.