Is it not in Rome that Christ was born?
Architecture in The Adoration of the Shepherds by Cornelis Cort (1567), private collection.
Cornelis Cort (1533, Hoorn, Holland 03.17.1578, Rome) was a prominent
Dutch art engraver and draughtsman whose creative activity signifies cultural
links between the Netherlands and Italy in the 16th century. He might have
been taught by Dirck Volkertsz, along with Philips Galle. Cornelis Cort
lived in the Netherlands till 1565. From 1560 until 1565, he worked for the
well-known publisher Hieronymus Cock in Antwerp. Corts prints after the
compositions by the Netherlands artists, i. e. Rogier van der Weyden, Marten
van Heemskerck, Michael van Coxie, Pieter Brueghel, and many others, date
from that time. Besides, he used to replicate his own drawings. In 1565,
Cornelis Cort came to live in Italy where he made engravings after Raphael,
Michelangelo, Titian, Giulio Romano, Polidoro da Caravaggio, and other
Italian masters of the High Renaissance and Mannerism. From 1566 already, in
Rome, Cornelis Cort cooperated actively with some publishers, Antonio
Lafreri and Lorenzo Vaccari of Bologna among them. From 1572 till his death
that befell him in March of 1578 he was staying in the Eternal City.
Thereby, the Netherlands artist who created altogether 292 engravings
entered his name in the history of Italian art, too.
The creative activity of Cornelis Cort marked the whole history in the
European art. His skill of producing utterly exact engraving lines,
conveying the volume of objects through cross-hatching, gaining the illusion
of deep shadow and bright light through the difference of tone, conveying
the subtle gradations of tone with the help of the most thin hyphens and
points, at same time keeping the sensation of white tone of the paper. His
work influenced the style of such famous Netherlandish engravers as Hendrick
Goltzius, Jan Muller, and that of distinguished Italian masters who engraved
with chisel, Lodovico, Agostino and Annibale Carracci.
The prints by Cornelis Cort, who reproduced the compositions of both the Netherlandish and
Italian artists, not only had an impact on engraving styles, but acquainted
the public with the creative achievements of great painters, and thus turned
out to be an indispensable link between the painting schools of the North
and South. At the same time, the most valuable aspect of Corts engravings
is something extraordinary a spirit of genuine poetry. Modeling the
objects in space with the help of cross-hatching and, thereby, creating an
impression of light and air surrounding them, he magically conveyed, without
colour but with the thinnest lines, not only what was available to the eye,
but the greatness of the spirit itself.
Cornelis Cort worked a great deal after the drawings by the Zuccari brothers,
Taddeo (1529, S. Agnolo in Vado, near Urbino 1566, Rome) and Federico
(1540 (?), S. Agnolo in Vado, near Urbino 07. 20. 1609, Ancona). One must
speak of creative activity of two brothers at the same time since, as fate
would have it, their lives and work were entangled. Toddeo, more talented of
the two, came to the Eternal City in his early youth; Federico, who followed
his elder brother in 1550, was taught by him, and later, after Toddeos
death, he completed the monumental paintings started by him. Both Zuccaris
belong to the number of the great masters of the 16th century. These
painters are considered by convention in the school of Giorgio Vasari.
The intaglio entitled The Adoration of the Shepherds (1567) after the
composition by Taddeo Zuccaro (The New Hollstein, 8996, No 30) is one of
the best works by Cornelis Cort. His famous sheet, 428 х 288, underwent many
replicas which caused the print block wear and necessitated correcting the
strokes of the author. The lower margins got inscriptions, printed in
addition from supplementary sheet blocks, explaining the subject, as well as
new dedications to noble persons, and their armorial bearings, too. In short,
the given engraving by Cornelis Cort is known in VII states! And what is
more, when the original of The Adoration of the Shepherds was being
published again and again at the end of the 16th century, it was, at the
same time, copied more than ten times by other engravers, mainly Italian (The
New Hollstein, 91, No 30 copies a-k). We will note that among those who
replicated the print by Cornelis Cort was even the famous Dutch master
Philips Galle. The composition was reproduced both directly, the way it had
been made, and reversed, with its size enlarged or diminished. Engravers
replicated not only prints by Cornelis Cort, but produced copies after
copies, as well. The Department of prints at the State Hermitage Museum,
containing no off-print from the original work by Cornelis Cort, lets us
have a more complete idea of the copies of it. The case in point here is The
Adoration of the Shepherds sheet (253 х 201); the right lower corner bears
an inscription: Tadeus Zuccaro / Vrbin In[], that is Tadeus Zuccaro / of
Urbino invented, and then an engraver monogram that is difficult to read,
and two minute zeros above it that may be a date indication: [16]00 (inv. No
160219, acq. before 1832). This copy sheet was exhibited in the Hermitage
(2000) and in the Museum of Arts in Lahti, Finland (2003). While describing
this engraving after Taddeo Zuccaro for the first time the Hermitage
research officer Arkady. V. Ippolitov committed a number of unfortunate
errors which need to be pointed out (The Christ Child. West European print
of the 1518th centuries from the collection of the State Hermitage Museum.
St. Petersburg, 2000. P. 2425, cat. No 19, in Russian). The print not as a
copy but as the original work is attributed by him to the unknown master of
the circle of Cherubino Alberti (1553, Borgo in Sansepolcro 1615, Rome).
The comparison of the Hermitage print which seems to have been produced in
Italian style of engraving about 1600, with the opus by Cornelis Cort dating
from 1567 causes the only possible conclusion: the off-print from the
Hermitage collection (inv. No 160219) does not appear to be an original
engraving work in which the drawings by Taddeo Zuccaro are interpreted in a
personal way. This is an exact replicating and, in some degree, diminished
copy, directed the same way, from the great engraving by Cornelis Cort. The
Hermitage off-print is likely to be unique. In the next editions of The New
Hollstein, the given sheet should be added to the list of numerous
anonymous copies from The Adoration of the Shepherds by Cornelis Cort in
it under the rubric copy l.
