Giovanni Battista FRANCO.1498-1561

The confront with the Doctors.XVIh cenury

Etching and burin, mm. 372x468. Small margins, watermark. Good copy.

According to the Sopher, in this engraving there is no etching already mentioned by Bartsch. It is probably one of the first engraving of the Semoleo, dating back to the beginning of 1530, at the time of the Roman stay. Despite its sometimes "opaque or repetitive style and the heaviness with which many details have been designed, this print has a softness and a dominant gray tone that partially reveal its Venetian origins". There are many similarities with certain monumental figures of Raphaelesque style. The same Sopher notes the strange discord between the symmetrical architecture and the asymmetry of the figures, with the Christ "small and not visually centered". The composition is kept balanced by the statue depicted in the central apse.Bartsch, 1870, XV/, p. 122, n. 9 I/II; M. Sopher – C. Lazzaro Bruno, op. cit., 1978, scheda n. 71.; D’Amico, p. 47, n. 179.