Lot No.16 

description

Johann Wilhelm Baur

(Straßburg 1607-1646 Vienna) Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 149 etchings, 1639-1641, pasted into an album, trimmed within the platemarks, partly stained, (148), (Sch)

“In 1639 Baur concentrated his entire creative energy on the illustration of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In 1641 he finished his work with an allegorical frontispiece showing the personifications of Wisdom and Virtue triumphing over their antagonists and unfolding a piece of cloth with a dedication to the imperial councillor Jonas von Heysperg. The latter’s coat of arms of a lion above three flickering flames appears above the destinee’s address. The coat of arms recurs repeatedly throughout the cycle, such as on curtains or backrests of chairs. Baur succeeded in rendering the essence of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in concise and fascinating scenes. Landscapes play a subordinate role, although they emphasise the plot. […] A striking feature of Baur’s interpretations of Ovid is his effort to combine the ancient plot with his own ideas of Italian villas, gardens, ports, and idyllic landscapes, in which he was dependent on Elsheimer. […] In spite of his originality, Baur drew many ideas from previous Ovid illustrations, such as from the woodcuts by Bernhard Salomon published in Lyon in 1557, which were copied by Virgil Solis as early as 1563 for the Frankfurt-based publisher Sigismund Feyerabent and circulated in Germany. Baur’s most significant source, however, were the illustrations of Ovid published by Antonio Tempesta in 1606, who in many cases had been inspired by Salomon’s woodcuts as well.”
Literature: Régine Bonnefoit, Johann Wilhelm Baur (1607-1642). Ein Wegbereiter der barocken Kunst in Deutschland, Berlin 1997, p. 111.