Vase with two handles thumbnail 1
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level D , Case EO, Shelf 129

Vase with two handles

Print
1540-1560 (Engraved)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

This print is a mid 16th-century copy of a print first engraved and published in Rome earlier in the century. That the original was copied at all is a sign of the poularity of the subject matter at the time.

The lettering shows that this print was aimed at an educated audience who could read and understand Latin. It says that this vase is like the ones made in bronze and marble by sculptors in ancient Rome. This statement may not be entirely true as the type of ring shown on the side of the vase set with what is probably meant to be an uncut diamond, was much more common in the sixteenth century than in Ancient Rome.

A great flowering of interest in archaeology in Rome and throughout Italy in the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries combined with a careful study of the writings of ancient Roman and Greek authors are seen as defining characteristics of the phenomenon given the name the Renaissance in the nineteenth century.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleVase with two handles (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Engraving, ink on paper
Brief description
Anonymous mid-sixteenth-century engraving of a vase decorated with lions flanking a ring set with a jewel, Italy
Physical description
Engraving of a vase decorated with lions flanking a ring set with a jewel, Italy, ink on paper
Dimensions
  • Cut to height: 26.1cm
  • Cut to width: 18.4cm
Style
Marks and inscriptions
  • SIC ROMAE. ANTIQVI. SCULPTORES. EX.AERE ET MARMORE. FACIEBAT
    Translation
    Thus did the ancient Roman sculptors make from bronze and marble.
  • Anchor in a circle beneath a three leafed figure. (Watermark on its side, facing viewer's left, below lid of vase.)
Production
One of two plates in the collection by an unknown mid 16th-century Italian engraver after plates from a set of twelve vases engraved by Agostino Veneziano. Reversed copies of B. XIV, 543 and 500.
Subjects depicted
Summary
This print is a mid 16th-century copy of a print first engraved and published in Rome earlier in the century. That the original was copied at all is a sign of the poularity of the subject matter at the time.

The lettering shows that this print was aimed at an educated audience who could read and understand Latin. It says that this vase is like the ones made in bronze and marble by sculptors in ancient Rome. This statement may not be entirely true as the type of ring shown on the side of the vase set with what is probably meant to be an uncut diamond, was much more common in the sixteenth century than in Ancient Rome.

A great flowering of interest in archaeology in Rome and throughout Italy in the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries combined with a careful study of the writings of ancient Roman and Greek authors are seen as defining characteristics of the phenomenon given the name the Renaissance in the nineteenth century.
Associated object
16844 (Original)
Bibliographic reference
Miller, Elizabeth.16th-Century Italian Ornament Prints in the Victoria and Albert Museum p.229, cat. 66b plate 10.
Collection
Accession number
29470:7

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Record createdApril 2, 2007
Record URL
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