Pietro Aretino
Medium
Etching, only state
Dimensions
Sheet: 9 15/16 × 7 3/16 in. (25.3 × 18.2 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Georgiana W. Sargent, in memory of John Osborne Sargent, 1924
Accession Number
24.63.18
Tags
Art Historical Context
This striking etching, created in 1649 by Wenceslaus Hollar after a portrait by Titian, captures the likeness of Pietro Aretino, the celebrated 16th-century Italian writer, satirist, literary figure. Aretino’s sharp wit and influential connections with artists and rulers made him a larger-than-life presence in Renaissance Venice, and Titian’s original painting immortalized him as both a thinker and a man of the world. Hollar’s delicate line work translates the painting’s vitality into print form, preserving the subject’s distinctive profile and thoughtful expression for a wider audience. As a...
About the Artist
Wenceslaus Hollar|Pietro Aretino|Titian (Tiziano Vecellio)|Frans van den Wyngaerde · 1607–1677
Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) was a prolific Bohemian etcher who became one of the most accomplished printmakers of the seventeenth century. Born in Prague, he trained under Matthäus Merian in Frankfurt before entering the service of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, in 1636. Hollar spent most of his career in England, where he produced approximately 2,740 etchings documenting an extraordinary range...