Oeuvre de Marc-Antoine Raimondi

Baldus’s second collection of photogravures after renaissance engravings published with the help of J. Baudry. Unlike its predecessor, Recueil D’ornements, with its focus on historical ornamental design and its multitude of artists, this series concentrated on the work of a single acknowledged renaissance master, Marcantonio Raimondi. Raimondi was himself famous as a copyist; the leading artists of his day charged him with recreating their paintings and drawings in the re­productive medium of engraving, so that their designs might circulate widely. Centuries before photography, and even into the late nineteenth century, this variety of re­production (or, more accurately put, transla­tion) was common practice. Baldus’s col­lection features primarily engravings after Raphael, along with two after Michelangelo and one ‘d’apres l’antique’. [1]