Giorgio Ghisi
This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (February 2024) |
Giorgio Ghisi (1520 — 15 December 1582) was an Italian
Life
He was the son of Lodovico Ghisi, a merchant whose family which had lived in Mantua for more than two hundred years. His artistic training is not documented, but he is thought to have learned engraving from Giovanni Battista Scultori.[1]
His earliest works are engravings after Giulio Romano, the dominant artistic figure in Mantua at the time. [1] At some time during pontificate of Paul III (1536–49) Ghisi visited Rome, where four of his prints were published by Antonio Lafreri. His other engravings from the 1540s included a large print, on ten separate plates, of Michelangelo's fresco of the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel. [1]
In 1549 or 1550 he went to Antwerp, where, between 1550 and 1555, he produced five dated engraving projects for
One of only two surviving pieces of damascened armour known to have been engraved by him is also from this period, the Ghisi Shield, signed and dated 1554.[4]
His movements between his employment with Cock and his return to Mantua in the late 1560s remain obscure; his engravings from this time were not commissioned by major publishers, although many seem to have been published in France, and Ghisi is known to have been in Paris in 1562.[4]
In the last few years of his life he was employed as keeper of jewels and precious metals, and overseer of the wardrobe, to the ruling family of Mantua, the
He died on 15 December 1582, aged 62. He was survived by his wife, but left no children.[5]
His brother Teodoro was a painter, and at least two of Ghisi's engravings are based on his designs. [6] Many older sources, misinterpreting a passage in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists, mistakenly identify Giovanni Battista Scultori as Teodoro's father, and Scultori's children, the engravers Adamo Scultori and Diana Scultori as his brother and sister, giving all three the surname "Ghisi".[6]
Prints
Ghisi was a reproductive engraver, that is one basing his works on paintings by other artists,[5] although he often elaborated backgrounds with landscapes of his own invention, and added lavish foliage.[7] Despite doing much of his work outside Italy, his models were almost always the works of Italian artists.[8] Ten are after Giulio Romano, and a total of 13 are by two painters working in France: Francesco Primaticcio and Luca Penti.".[8]
Metalwork
The two known pieces of metalwork engraved by Ghisi are the
References
- ^ a b c Boorsch 1984, p. 16.
- ^ Boorsch 1984, p. 17.
- ^ Page 174-175 of the Liggeren
- ^ a b Boorsch 1984, p. 18.
- ^ a b c Boorsch 1984, p. 22.
- ^ a b Boorsch 1984, p. 15.
- ^ Boorsch 1984, p. 23.
- ^ a b Boorsch 1984, p. 25.
- ^ "Demidoff Shield / Ghisi Shield". British Museum. Retrieved 15 November 2012.
Sources
- Boorsch, Suzanne (1984). The Engravings of Giorgio Ghisi. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.