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Fine impression of one of the most beautiful prints by the artist. A true artist’s working sheet kept in a studio.
Verso: remains of counter proof of another printed image and a rapid graphite drawing of Mary holding the Child, indicating a frame. Most likely by a 17th century hand, perhaps even by the artist.
The subject of this print is taken from one of the Decameron novels by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–75) and represents the moment when the noble, but rough, Cimone watches Ifigenia and her companions sleeping by the fountain, and Ifigenia is awoken by his gaze. (Boccaccio, Decameron, 5:1).
A small oil sketch by Schut, now on the Belgian art market, features a very similar size of the print and almost the same scene in reverse.
Despite the composition resembling a painting of same subject executed by Rubens, Frans Snyders and Jan Wildens around 1617 (now in Dresda, Gemäldegalerie, inv. 532) the style of Schut’s print is very much Italianate. The Flemish artist would have studied Baroque Italian masters such as Pietro da Cortona, Guercino e Guido Reni while working in Rome and Florence in the 1620s.
