E.85 Fantuzzi, Cartouche with a Child

Possibly in part after Rosso.

Etching by Antonio Fantuzzi, 25.5 x 14.4 S (Paris).

Fig.E.85 (Zerner: Paris)

Herbet, II, 1896, 274 (1969, 70), 21, as attribution to Fantuzzi contested, and as a variant of the preceding (Herbet, 20).  Zerner, 1969, A.F.48 (Paris), as possibly by Fantuzzi, and a variant of the preceeding (Zerner, A.F.47).

COLLECTION: Paris, Ed 8b Rés., Vol. II, no. 55.

LITERATURE:

Kusenberg, 1931, 166, as Fantuzzi, in the style of Rosso, and perhaps after a lost decoration at Fontainebleau.

Béguin, RdA, 1969, 105, as a variant of a decorative scheme represented also by Zerner, A.F.47 [E.84].

Adelson, 1980, 161, n. 70, Fig. 62.

This etching, which may be by Fantuzzi, and the preceeding one (E.84) contain similar motifs around a framed circle: a seated nude child (in reverse of each other) playing two long horns, satyr-herms with their backs arched against the circle, an animal skull beneath the circle, an oblong panel with fruit garlands beneath it flanked by nude putti crawling downward or standing on their hands.  Although these etchings could be variants of each other, it is also possible that they reflect different models that were variant panels that belonged to a single scheme of decoration.  The playful putti can be compared to those in Rosso’s Venus and Minerva fresco in the Gallery of Francis I (Fig.P.22, I N a), or to those in stucco found throughout the gallery.  At the lower right of the Scene of Sacrifice are putti playing long horns (Fig.P.22, VII N a).  Similar animals appear on the West Wall of the gallery (Fig.P.22, WestWall, a), and the garlands appear in many of its sections.  There are no satyr-herms in the gallery like those in these etchings, but there are similar herm-like figures flanking the Combat of Centaurs and Lapiths (Fig.P.22, I S a), the Danäe (Fig.P.22, IV S a), and the Twins of Catania (Fig.P.22, V N a).  The vocabulary of these etchings does seem to be Rosso’s.  Furthermore, the compositions of the cartouches are quite like those of the stucco panels of the West Wall of the gallery, with circles in the center, rectangular and arched framing motifs around them, in and upon which are placed the various figures, most of them children.  It is therefore quite likely that these two etchings reflect inventions by Rosso.

On the possibility that these cartouches are related to what Rosso may have designed for the Small Gallery at Fontainebleau of around 1533-1534, see L.41.  A certain robustness of the forms in these etchings might suggest that these cartouches are of a somewhat later date, although it would be impossible to insist upon this.  But they do seem slightly different from the other two cartouches etched by Fantuzzi (Fig.E.82; Fig.E.83) that could also be related to the Small Gallery.  But a range of contemporary invention exists in the Gallery of Francis I and such could also have been the case in the Small Gallery.