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Lot description
MARTINO ROTA (AFTER MICHELANGELO) The Last Judgment. Engraving, 1569. 323x230 mm; 12 3/4x9 1/4 inches, thread margins. First state (of 2), with the address of Luca Guerinoni. Anchor or cardinal's hat in a circle watermark. A superb, richly-inked, early impression of this scarce engraving, with very strong contrasts and no sign of wear. This is among the earliest engravings of Michelangelo's (1475-1564) fresco on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, which took four years for him to complete between 1536 and 1541. Rota (1520-1583) was a draughtsman and engraver. He was born in Sabenico, Dalmatia, and was active in Rome during the 1540s-1560s, after which he moved to Florence and then Venice. Rota used etching and engraving together in his plates and while few original compositions are known by his hand, his near-contemporary, meticulously-rendered prints after paintings by Italian Renaissance masters were extremely important for the dissemination of these images through Europe during the mid to late 1500s. By 1568, Rota was employed at the imperial Hapsburg court in Vienna and moved to Prague in the late 1570s when Rudolf II relocated the court. Provenance: John Postle Heseltine (Lugt 1508, verso). Bartsch 28.