[Giovanni Angelo CANINI (1616-1666).] Album of 85 effigies of illustrious men taken from antique gems, coins and fragmentary reliefs, [Rome, before 1666].

Octavo (250 x 165mm), drawings in red chalk, on several types of paper, one of which bears the watermark of bird on three hills inscribed in a circle, first endpaper numbered "No. 94" and the final one, "No 75", many pages inscribed in pen and ink under the figures, page numbers in pencil and modern ballpoint from page 17 onwards (occassional dampstaining to several pages, many bearing dustsoiled creases, marginal losses to final two leaves). 18th century boards (spine sunned and chipped at bottom, edges and corners rubbed).

A rare group of eighty-five original drawings by Giovanni Angelo Canini, for inclusion in his 1669 work, Iconografia cioè disegni d'imagini de famosissimi monarchi, regi, filosofi, poeti ed oratori dell'antichità. Canini was an Italian painter, a prolific designer of engravings for illustrated books, and a pupil of Domenichino. Canini died in 1666, three years before this volume appeared, and the task of publishing it fell to his brother who wrote the introduction to the volume, explaining that Canini had made for pleasure all these drawings and had them translated into prints to use for his book that was dedicated to the King of France.

Most his book designs were executed by well-known professional engravers like Etienne Picart (the father of Bernard Picart), Giovanni Testana, Guillaume Vallet, or Cornelis Bloemaert. His friend and biographer Giovanni Battista Passeri praised his draughtsman's qualities. Passeri also mentions that his pursuits in poetry and his interest in archeology brought him into an antiquarian circle including the distinguished artists Poussin and Bellori. At least one of the drawings appears to have been used as a model by Bernard Picart for an illustration in the Gemmae Antiquae Caelatae, an important work on antique carved stones found in European collections and published in 1724 by Picart and von Stosch. Baron Philipp von Stosch (1691-1757) was one of the most prominent collectors of antique gems and dealer in antiquities, who lived in Florence and Rome. A large group of Picart’s drawings were once in the possession of Stosch’s protector and good friend François Fagel (1659-1746) and all sold together in a single album at an auction in 1801.

The present set of drawings were bound together in the eighteenth century. Many pages bear wrapping folds that suggest that they may have been used as wrappers for the etching plates at one point in time. The majority of the drawings additionally bear what appear to be seventeenth century ink inscriptions in French. Two leaves bear additional (and unnumbered) drawings on the verso, and one bears an additional drawing on the recto, beneath the annotation. That several pages appear to have been excised out of the volume, it is presumed the collection was once larger. The French inscriptions suggest that the drawings may have been in the possession of Etienne Picart (1632-1721) and later by his son Bernard Picard (1673-1733), who moved from Paris to Amsterdam in 1710. One of the paper remnants bears the name "B. van Straaten" in pencil, which may be a nineteenth century Dutch artist. Provenance: J. H. Jongkees (1913-1967) & M.F. Jongkees-Vos (1933-2018).

References: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Vol. 18 (1975); N. Turner, Drawings by Giovanni Angelo Canini. Vol. 16, No. 4, 1978; J.J.L.Whiteley, "Philipp von Stosch, B.Picart and the Gemmae Antiquae Caelatae" in Martin Henig & D. Plantzos (eds), Festschrift for Gertrud Seidman, 1999, pp.183-7.