Jean Baron (1616–1660) - Suite de quinze portraits de peintres, sculpteurs et architectes italiens, d’après Giorgio Vasari.

Baron, Jean (Toulouse, 1616 – Rome, 1660)
Suite of fifteen portraits of Italian painters, sculptors, and architects, after Giorgio Vasari.
[Rome?], around 1640–1650.

Collection of 15 engravings in an intaglio technique, printed on antique laid paper, each presented in bust form and accompanied at the bottom with the name and the status of the artist depicted. Several plates bear on the right the signature “Baron F.”.

The portraits belong to the remarkable suite engraved by Jean Baron, known under the conventional title Serie italienischer Künstlerbildnisse nach Vasari. The copy digitized by the University of Heidelberg is attributed to Jean Baron, probably executed in Rome and dated to the 1640s. (Digi.ub Heidelberg)

The present collection includes:

Giovanni Francesco Rustici — Gio. Frances. Rustichi scul. et arch. Fiorent.
Bartolomeo da Bagnacavallo — Bartolomeo da Bagnacav. pit. Romag.
Francesco Salviati — Francesco Salviati pit. Fiorent.
Giorgione da Castelfranco — Giorgione da Castelfranco pit. Viniziano
Giorgio Vasari — Giorgio Vasari pit. et architet. Aretino
Liberale da Verona
Raffaellino del Garbo
Franciabigio
Girolamo da Treviso — Girolamo da Trevigi pittore
Daniele da Volterra — Daniel Ricciar. da Vol. pittore e scultore
Andrea del Sarto — Andrea del Sarto pit. Fiorent.
Giovanni Antonio Licinio, dit Pordenone — Gio. Ant. Licinio da Por. Denone pit.
Titien — Tiziano da Cadore pittore
Polidoro da Caravaggio — Polidoro da Caravaggio pit.
Donato Bramante — Vita di Bramante archit.

This suite continues and develops the iconography of the artists spread by Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Heidelberg explicitly describes the entire Baron collection as a series of portraits of Italian artists after Vasari and reproduces notably the Vasari and Giorgione portraits corresponding to the present sheets. (Digi.ub Heidelberg)

A very interesting, homogeneous gathering of fifteen Italian Renaissance portraits by Jean Baron, a French engraver active in Rome, including several major figures: Titian, Giorgione, Vasari, Bramante, and Andrea del Sarto.

Old impressions on laid paper. Margins generally short or irregular; some creases, browning, stains, soiling, and small marginal defects; some sheets show traces of former mounting. Despite these defects, generally fine impressions overall, with bold and solid plates.