Author: LANIER (Nicholas):
Title: Proue prime fatti a l'aqua forte da N. Lanier a l'eta sua giouenile di sessanta otto anni 1656.
Description: [No place] [No Publisher] [c. 1825]. 231 x 147 mms., 31 full-page engraved plates (including the foxed first leaf functioning as title-page), 2 folding engraved plates, bound in quarter early 19th century roan, with "Lanier's Drawing Book 1656" tooled in gilt on spine, plain boards; first plate, with title foxed, many plates marked with "L" in corner area of plate, others marked with "V". The musician and art dealer Nicholas Lanier (bap. 1588, d. 1666) was in Italy, specifically Venice, as early as 1610, as a diplomatic courier. "Immediately after the funeral of James I on 7 May 1625 Lanier was dispatched by the new king, Charles I, to Italy, to search out and purchase paintings for the enlargement of the Royal Collection. Through Daniel Nys, a French-born art dealer, agent, and entrepreneur, Lanier made contact with the duke of Mantua, Ferdinando Gonzaga, with a view to buying the extensive and celebrated Mantuan collection. The negotiations were long and tortuous and were not finally completed until 1628; the total price paid for this splendid collection was 68,000 scudi (then about £15,000). During this period Lanier made two separate visits to Italy, being based for the most part in Venice. At the end of his first trip he returned to England with his own portrait by Van Dyck (now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). As a result Van Dyck was invited to enter the service of King Charles. Lanier had already begun to collect drawings, both for himself and for his patron Lord Arundel, at a time when such pieces were considered valueless, and was the first to imprint on them a distinctive collector's mark" (ODNB). This volume consists entirely of engravings from the drawings of Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola), Giulio Romano, Lodovico Carracci and others. Ian Spink, "Lanier in Italy," Music and Letters(1959). Christopher Baker, Caroline Elam and Genevieve Warwick, editors: Collecting Prints and Drawings in Europe, c. 1500-1750 (2003).

Keywords: art engraving prose


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