Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso is a beautiful black and white etching on paper, realized in XIX century by the Italian old master, Giuseppe Marcucci (Rome 1807-1893),   as the inscription on plate reports on lower right margin, under the image.

Title printed on plate on the lower margin at the center.

This original print represents the great playwright of " La Gerusalemme Liberata" ( 1581), Torquato Tasso   in an institutional bust profile, in the official portrait reserved to the great personalities.

Realized with full mastery of the technique, this old master's print is in excellent condition, except for a minor stain on lower margin on the right side and on the edges of the marginal line of the matrix. 

Giuseppe Marcucci (Rome 1807 - 1893)

Giovanni Marcucci  was a refined engraver and skilled restorer and practiced his activity mainly for a private commission and was the ordinary professor ofdrawing of the figure at the Academy of Fine Arts of Lucca until 1876. He was a master, among others, of the painter Michele Marcucci. Among the interventions made by him we remember in particular the restoration of the three panels by Giorgio Vasari representing "The Immaculate Conception", "Sant'Eustachio" and "San Biagio" for the altar of the Holy Sacrament of the Church of St. Pier Cigoli , executed in 1840 on behalf of the Carmelite Fathers of Lucca and the intervention, dating back to 1854, on "The Exaltation of the Cross" of Palo Biancucci on the occasion of the transfer of the altarpiece from the Church of St. Giustina to the Oratory of the Cross. In 1856, following the death of the painter Raffaele Giovannetti, he joined the Commission of Fine Arts of the Duchy of Lucca. His colleague Michele Ridolfi did not hesitate to call him "our other restorer, skilled in his art"