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Jacques Callot Dramatic Acquisitions for the Baillieu Library Print Collection Alice Clanachan

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Jacques Callot Dramatic Acquisitions for the Baillieu Library Print Collection Alice Clanachan Jacques Callot Dramatic acquisitions for the Baillieu Library Print Collection Alice Clanachan Callot and the Baillieu Since then, a late 20th-century Callot’s innovations Library Print Collection etching after Callot’s famed La in etching Jacques Callot (1592–1635) was tentation de Saint Antoine (The Callot’s first advance in the a printmaker whose well-known temptation of St Anthony) has also technique of etching was the use works include series of etchings on been acquired, as well as another of a harder ground of mastic and military and religious subjects. He is Callot etching depicting court linseed oil.4 This is the acid-resistant well represented in the University of pageantry. medium applied to those areas of the Melbourne’s Baillieu Library Print In an environment where etched metal plate that are intended Collection, with 64 of his prints accountability and public interest to remain unbitten when it is placed being among the large collection underlie the fundamental practices in the acid bath. Previously, weaker donated by Dr J. Orde Poynton in of museums, universities and grounds had not adhered well to the 1959.1 There are now more than collecting institutions, the concept plate and had chipped off, which 80 prints by or after Callot in the of assessing significance as part meant that acid began to bite in areas collection, including those from his of developing and documenting a not intended. (The result is known most famous series, Les misères et les collection is particularly valuable. as ‘foul biting’.) The harder ground malheurs de la guerre (The miseries Having a comprehensive significance meant that Callot could take his and misfortunes of war) of 1633. assessment for the Print Collection time over a plate or series, enabling But before 2009 there were very few has been integral to understanding him to perfect the practice of making examples of Callot’s theatrical court which works and artists are currently repeated bitings to enhance effects art in the collection. In this article I represented, and for determining of light and space.5 This is evident in discuss the acquisition of an etching future areas of collecting.2 Drawing Callot’s etchings, where background by Callot, describe his contributions upon Significance 2.0, a useful tool detail has shallower, lightly bitten to the history of printmaking, and in assessing the significance of a lines while the wide, sweeping explore those of his etchings that work or collection against qualitative strokes of the foreground have been depict festivals during his time as a assessment criteria,3 I prepared the bitten multiple times. court artist. acquisition proposal focusing on Callot also began using a new With the encouragement of the relationship of the nominated type of etching tool with an oval Kerrianne Stone, Special Collections etching to the Baillieu’s existing point (the échoppe), similar to Officer (Prints), in 2009 I prepared print corpus and policy documents. the burin (the traditional tool of an acquisition proposal for an Poynton’s relationship to the engraving).6 The traditional etching etching by Callot, from a series collection is an important aspect needle could not create lines that that commemorates a court festival. of its significance that is reiterated swell and diminish, and the hard At the time, I was undertaking a in the collection policy. Therefore, ground Callot used on the metal student project with the collection when considering a new acquisition, plate provided an excellent surface through the university’s Cultural I made particular reference to for exploiting the échoppe. The detail Collections Projects Program. Poynton and his donation. in Callot’s prints is remarkably fine, 48 University of Melbourne Collections, issue 10, June 2012 Jacques Callot, Entrée de Monsieur de Couvonge, et de Monsieur de Chalabre, plate 3 from Le combat à la barrière (Combat at the barrier), 1627, etching, 15.2 x 24.0 cm (plate). Reg. no. 2009.0112, purchased 2009, Baillieu Library Print Collection, University of Melbourne as he used a magnifying glass when of court theatre.10 After Cosimo’s the fête on a dragon vehicle that drawing with his etching tool.7 death in 1621, Callot returned to represents hell and its demons Nancy where he executed two series (illustrated above). While the work Theatre and court art inspired by Florentine subjects. Gobbi is historically significant because of Callot (1622) depicts dwarf entertainers and it records a real event, it is also By 1614 Callot was living in Florence Balli de Sfessania (1621) shows street significant to the Print Collection and receiving commissions from performers inspired by the commedia because two other prints from the the Medici court.8 His time there dell’arte. series were donated by Poynton. It inspired him to represent vibrant therefore strengthens the existing theatre scenes through the medium Entrée de Messieurs de Callot corpus as well as providing of etching. Florence in the early 17th Couvonge et de Chalabre insight into Callot’s artistry and century was celebrated throughout Callot’s family connections with the technical skill. Europe as a centre for theatre, under ducal court in Nancy enabled him Working under the court painter the rule of Grand Duke Cosimo II to use his artistic skills to become an Claude Deruet (the artistic director de’ Medici. Callot recorded many artist of the feudal power. Le combat of all ducal entertainment), Callot court-sponsored pageants and à la barrière (Combat at the barrier) designed the actual wagons, costumes elaborate theatrical productions at (1627) was executed at a time when and décor for the event, as well as that time. Working under Giulio Callot was undertaking commissions etching the plates for Le combat à la Parigi, a Florentine architect, from the court of Charles IV, the barrière.11 His tutelage under Parigi engineer and court designer, Callot Duke of Lorraine. Late in 1626, during his time in Florence had learnt to organise space in his prints Charles had given political asylum to equipped him with the skills to be through mathematical perspective, his cousin, the Duchess of Chevreuse, an independent designer. The fire- and began to set his figures in the and while she was at Nancy a pageant breathing-dragon wagon and sinuous foregrounds of animated scenes. He and tournament were staged in her creatures with feathery limbs wielding was also influenced by Parigi’s elegant honour. Callot recorded the event snakes and flying above inEntrée stage sets and fantastic costumes.9 in a series of 11 etchings, brought de MM de Couvonge et de Chalabre An etching from 1620, Foire de together with descriptive text suggest that this is an exaggeration of l’Impruneta (The fair at Impruneta) passages. the real event. It is very likely that the is a masterful representation—in Plates 9 and 10 from Le combat actual wagon was re-used year after minute detail—of a large crowd, were part of the collection that year, with different decorations added as well as a competent creation of Poynton donated to the Baillieu in on this occasion. Indeed, a preparatory perspective through dark and light 1959. Entrée de MM de Couvonge drawing of this scene shows a shading. At this stage Callot also et de Chalabre (1627) is the third considerably toned-down affair.12 began to merge his own taste for in the series and depicts two This print is an excellent example of the bizarre and grotesque aspects noblemen, Monsieur de Couvonge Callot’s skill in making a visual record of daily life with fanciful elements and Monsieur de Chalabre, entering of theatrical court festivals. Alice Clanachan, ‘Jacques Callot: Dramatic acquisitions for the Baillieu Library Print Collection’ 49 Jacques Callot, Secondo intermedio dove si vide armarsi l’Inferno per far vendetta di Circe contro Tirreno (Second interlude: Hell arms itself to avenge Circe against Tirreno), plate 2 from Les intermèdes or La liberazione di Tirenno et d’Arnea (Liberation of the Tyrrhenian Sea), 1617, etching, 18.8 x 28.5 cm (plate). Reg. no. 2011.0003, purchased 2011, Baillieu Library Print Collection, University of Melbourne 50 University of Melbourne Collections, issue 10, June 2012 Hell arms itself to avenge Erik Desmazières and is a French printmaker, who is Circe La tentation de Saint Antoine currently chairman of the Société In 2011, the Baillieu Library acquired Callot etched the subject of des Peintres-Graveurs Français another of Callot’s theatrical fantasy St Anthony twice in his career: at (Society of French Engravers). Many prints (illustrated opposite). Secondo the beginning and the end. The of his works are clearly influenced intermedio dove si vide armarsi earlier version was executed in 1617, by Old Master prints, and have l’Inferno per far vendetta di Circe in the same year as Les intermèdes, strong architectural aspects and contro Tirreno (Second interlude: Hell and the later version shortly before psychologically charged elements. arms itself to avenge Circe against his death in 1635. Both depict wide The interpretive potential of Tirreno) of 1617 is an etching from architectural spaces containing Callot’s etchings from Le combat Les intermèdes or La liberazione hellish scenes with grotesque figures, à la barrière and Les intermèdes di Tirenno et d’Arnea (Liberation although the figures in the former would be further extended if other of the Tyrrhenian Sea). It is the are feasting and dancing, while in the plates from these series could be second plate in a three-part series latter they are engaged in combat. acquired in future. As well as the that records a spectacle at the Uffizi Although dealing with religious newly acquired etchings being designed by Parigi for the marriage of subject matter, both versions still useful in demonstrating Callot’s Cosimo’s sister Caterina to Ferdinand show Callot’s sense of pageantry.
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