COPPERPLATE ENGRAVING – “THE HOLY VIRGIN OF EGYPT” from the original painting by Jusepe de Ribera, and engraved by G. Planer, and published in the mid 1800’s.  The means by which a copperplate is engraved gives it more detail and depth to the picture.  Copperplate engravings are seen as the most perfect means of reproducing a painting or other forms of visual art, thus giving it the most artistic value of any form of engraving.  This engraving is in good condition.  The actual engraving measures 10 1/4” x 7 1/8”, and is matted to 16” x 20” for easy framing. 

     The holy virgin, known by the name of St. Mary of Egypt, has, according to tradition, the same antecedents as Mary of Magdala.  She, too, has sinned much, and had much to repent of.  From Jerusalem, where, at the grave of Christ, she had renounced the vanities and frivolities of this world, she went into the desert, and there she devoted the remainder of her life to doing penance.  She is the same ‘Maria Egyptiana’, as the one in the chorus of the penitent in the last scene of Goethe’s Faust.  Jusepe de Ribera, called Spagnoletto, has treated his subject with great freedom; and according to what the legend says of her, she would scarcely be recognized to be the one represented in this picture.  But it is well known that this painter often, and by preference, treated this part of the legend, and that she must be understood to be the same.  And who would blame the artist for not having represented his penitent sinner haggard and contrition, with her face shriveled up prematurely, and her hair gray with the privations of a lonely life, but on the contrary adorned her with all the gracefulness that he was able to bestow upon her.  She is represented kneeling at her open grave, and praying, with her long flowing hair enclosing her lovely, thoughtful, expressive face, and like a cloak robing her figure, devoid of all earthliness.  Her ardent eyes, moist with tears, look up to heaven, from whence the Angel of death is descending to throw the shroud, death’s livery, over the body of the repentant sinner.  Ribera who, in most of his works, is influenced by Caravaggio’s realistic manner, and in his ghastly pictures of martyrs is rather repulsive, appears in this work as the true child of Valencia.  The picture shows to a very high degree that depth of conception, that fervour of feeling, peculiar to Spanish art.  Its extremely soft handling and the peculiar charm of its colouring, might be connected with that peculiarity in painters of his country; if we had not to trace it to Correggio, whose works Ribera made a subject of his eager study.  It is evident also, that in some parts the picture is seriously injured, and that in others it is ungraceful; the awkward, clumsy angel and the rigid angular outline of its drapery being anything but pleasing.  But the maiden’s head, full of life and sympathetic expression, is of a charming beauty; it is this head alone that is reproduced in our engraving.  The picture bears the inscription of ‘Jusepe de Ribera, Espanol. F. 1641.

                                                                                                By Carl Clauss

IMPORTANT TO NOTE

Antique prints, engravings, and lithographs are printing processes, which use steel, copper, stone or wood blocks or plates to produce a picture on paper.

Most antique prints and engravings, which are seen on the internet today, are bookplates.  Because they are pages from a book, there are multiple copies in existence.  This does not, however, mean that they are "reproductions" that have been printed recently.  Because they were, at some point, part of books, some have been preserved in excellent condition, while others show signs of age, as yellow spots or darkness on the edge of the page from being handled.

Engravings, and lithographs are high quality pieces of art, as it took a highly trained artist many hours of work to produce one.  Although there may be multiple copies still in existence, the date of the item should be stated in the auction, thus giving the buyer an idea of its age.

SHIPPING AND HANDLING - Priority Mail $7.50