JAN VAN DER STRAET, CALLED STRADANUS | Venus, with Cupid, seated on clouds

D'Aigremont Collection,
sale Paris, 3-7 April 1866, lot 155 ("Apollon, Mars, Mercure, Saturne, Jupiter et Vénus: six très beaux dessins à la plume, lavis de sepia et rehaussés de blanc");
sale, Paris, Drouot, 11 March 1985, lot 174;
Private Collection, Paris

A. Baroni Vannucci, Jan van der Straet detto Giovanni Stradano, flandrus pictor et inventor, Milan 1997, pp. 281-2, no. 457, and under no. 454, reproduced p. 282

Window mounted. Some slight oxidisation of whites, but overall condition very good and fresh.
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This appealing depiction of Venus and Cupid, and also the image of Jupiter in the following lot, relate to a series of prints engraved by Jan Collaert II after designs by Stradanus, published at the end of the 1580s by Philips Galle, under the title Septem Planetae.  Reflecting astronomical understanding of the day, the ‘seven planets’ in question were the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.  Each planet is represented by the figure of the corresponding classical deity, within an engraved oval frame, and in addition there is a frontispiece (fig. 1), an oval composition in which the text is surrounded by smaller images of each deity, this time seated on clouds rather than standing.¹    Although the two drawings offered here are rather finished, and both are signed, they clearly represent Stradanus’s preliminary thoughts for the prints, not his final designs, and they are not indented for transfer to the copper plates.  The final print of Venus is a very different image, showing her standing in a shell, turned away from the viewer, and without Cupid.²  In the title print, however, the representation of Venus is much closer to the present drawing; there, the general pose of Venus’s body, if not the position of her legs and arms, is very similar to that seen in the drawing, and in both images Cupid appears by her left arm, though facing in different directions. 

Other drawings relating to this same print series include: two very similarly executed images of Apollo (representing the Sun) and Mars, both again showing the figures seated in clouds, and therefore closer to the title page than to the respective individual images in the engraved series³; two further drawings, depicting Mercury and Saturn, no longer known today but sold in the same lot as the present two drawings and those of Apollo and Mars, in the d’Aigremont sale of 1866 (see Provenance); another image of Mercury, dated 1587, which is very similar to the final print⁴; and two very sketchy, small preliminary studies, one for the title page, the other for the figure of Mars⁵.  Together, all these drawings shed fascinating light on the imagination and working method of one of the most productive and innovative designers of prints in late 16^th-century Antwerp. 

^1.  The New Hollstein: Dutch and Flemish etchings, engravings and woodcuts 1450-1700. The Collaert dynasty, Amsterdam 1993, 30, 33, no. 1306, reproduced
^2.  Ibid., pp. 31, 42, no. 1311, reproduced
^3.  Loppem Castle, Jean van Caloen Foundation; Baroni Vanucci, op. cit., nos. 456, 458, reproduced
^4.  Antwerp, Stedelijk Prentenkabinet, inv. D.III,23; Baroni Vanucci, op. cit., no. 454, reproduced
^5.  New York, Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design, inv. nos. 1901-39-2640 v and 1901-39-306; Baroni Vanucci, op. cit., nos. 459, 460