Wed Aug 28, 2019 10:26 PM

Morning Modelbuch (8/29/2019)

One of the current auctions at Sotheby’s has a painting from 1561 by Anthonis Mor, Portrait of Alessandro Farnese in Armour with beautiful armor decoration. As I love looking at the uses of the books by artisans other than embroiderers, I thought it would be a nice one to look at. https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2019/inspired-by-chatsworth-n10201/lot.8.html

The pattern style certainly turns up in the moresque style books like Pellegrino, but I like that you can also find the same patterns in the later lace books. Here is the same swirling vine motif in a lace pattern from the book I linked to in the Vatican Library a few days ago. https://digi.vatlib.it/view/GDS_Stampe.I.149 _Nova esposizione de recami et dessegni_ published by Giacomo Antonio Somascho. Shelfmark: I.149.

There’s another version of the portrait at the Meadows Museum in Dallas Texas but the detail of the online image doesn’t show the armor decoration well. Accession number MM.71.04 https://meadowsmuseumdallas.org/collections/pages/Obj499/?sid=18466&x=381539