Swann Galleries - Old Master Prints - Sale 2429: Part I, November 3, 2016

68 PIETER COECKE VAN AELST (after)

Procession of Sultan Süleyman through the Atmeidan from the frieze Customs and Fashions of theTurks

Group of 4 (of 7) woodcuts, circa 1553. Each approximately 332x470 mm; 13x18

inches

(sheets), wide margins, the four sheets forming a connected, continuous frieze. One sheet

with a Strasburg Lily watermark. Good impressions of these exceedingly scarce woodcuts.

We have found only 2 other sets of the woodcuts at auction in the past 30 years.

Van Aelst (1502-1550) traveled to Constantinople in 1533; he appears to have been part of

an expedition sent by the Brussels-based Dermoyen firm to negotiate a sale of tapestries to

the Sultan Süleyman.The firm may have been hoping that Süleyman, wanting to rivalWestern

monarchs, would commission a set of tapestries glorifying his reign, possibly based on the

designs rendered in this frieze.The tapestry commission appears never to have materialized.

Van Aelst’s widow published the woodcut frieze 20 years after her husband executed the

designs created during or soon after his journey to Constantinople. Hollstein 4.

[4,000/6,000]

●

AGOSTINO CARRACCI

Apollo and the Python

Etching and engraving, 1589-92. 242x345 mm; 9

x13

inches, narrow margins. Second

state (of 3), with the address of Suchielli lower left.A very good, strong impression. Bartsch

122; Bohlin 154.

[1,000/1,500]

●

HANS LAUTENSACK

Christ and the CanaaniteWoman

Etching, 1559. 153x217 mm; 6x8

inches. Second state (of 2). A very good impression

of this extremely scarce etching.

Lautensack (1524-circa 1560) was among the earliest printmakers to create pure landscape

etchings. He carried on a landscape etching legacy initiated by Albrecht Altdorfer from

some 30 years earlier (see lot 50), culminating in some of the finest, most fluid landscape

prints of the 16th century, before the theme was taken up again by Rembrandt in the

1640s. Lautensack’s etchings often contain Biblical subjects, such as this scene of Christ

with his disciples and the Canaanite woman kneeling before them, which are ancillary to

the greater landscape views of the compositions as a whole. Bartsch 48.

[1,500/2,500]