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Description: | CRE STRANGE, Robert, Sir; (Scottish; 1721-1792) AFTER RAPHAEL, Raffaello Santi; (Italian; 1483-1520) This engraving was among the prints described in Laskey's General Account (1813) as hanging framed in the original Hunterian Museum in Glasgow. Strange had a passion for paintings, and travelled to Italy where he lived for several years, looking at the great works, and making copy drawings from which to engrave. In many cases Strange's engravings are the finest reproductions of particular works ever made. Raphael's St Cecilia altarpiece in Bologna is a key work. Before Strange engraved it in 1771, it had not been engraved since the early sixteenth century, and Raimondi's engraving (TIB 116) was rare and expensive - and small. Through the 1750s and 1760s, Strange built up a collection of plates of some of the greatest paintings in Europe which he sold in sets. In 1769, the year of the first Royal Academy exhibition, he mounted an exhibition of 'thirty-two drawings, from capital paintings of great masters. Collected and drawn, during a journey of several years in Italy.' Displaying considerable business acumen, he fronted his own work with his collection of paintings 'selected from the Roman, Florentine, Lombard, Venetian, Neapolitan, Flemish, French and Spanish Schools', 19 of which Hunter would purchase when they were auctioned in 1771.
Strange's inscription on the plate records that he made his drawing in Bologna in 1763, and engraved the plate in London in 1771, two years after the opening of the Royal Academy, from which he (as an engraver) felt excluded. He also rather pointedly records his membership of the academies in Paris, Rome, Florence, Bologna and Parma. Note: the image attached is of another, better, impression, GLAHA 16586. | License: | http://www.hmag.gla.ac.uk/spirit/rights/ | Publisher: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Rights holder: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Subjects: | HUNTER 2007 : RENAISSANCE : ALTARPIECE : MUSIC : REPRODUCTIVE ENGRAVING : SAINTS : | Source: | Hunterian Museum | Creator: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Identifier: | http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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