Creator Biography
Jacques Callot, French, 1592–1635 (engraver).
Preview
Creation Date
17th century
Geography
France
Culture
French
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
With frame: 6 11/16 × 8 5/8 × 11/16 in. (16.9 × 21.9 × 1.8 cm)
Without frame: 2 × 2 15/16 in. (5.1 × 7.5 cm)
Credit Line
Gift in Loving Memory of Boris Blick & Judith Rosenbloom Blick by their daughter Sarah Blick, 2024
Accession Number
2015.83
Provenance
Purchased by Boris Blick from a couple of dealers in pre-Modern prints at a show sponsored by the Print Club of Cleveland, probably in the late 1990s.
Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings
Within image, lower left: "Callot"
Description
Engraving depicting individual vignettes of armed men in battle scenes.
Moments from setting off a cannon, the upper center figure, observed by his companion, corresponds directly to “L'Exercice du Canon: Le Tir” (which can be seen in the collection of Metropolitan Museum of Art (57.650.398(13))) in Callot’s Les Exercices Militaires. Consisting of thirteen prints, including a title print, the series depicts soldiers completing different “Military Exercises.” Callot increasingly created prints of military and war subjects towards the end of his life as the Thirty Years’ War continued to ravage Europe. The overlapping vignettes seen in this print could have been Callot’s practice for, or another artist’s inspiration from, the known-to-be copied Les Exercices Militaires.
For more information:
Meaume, Édouard. Recherches sur la vie et les ouvrages de Jacques Callot suite au Peintre-graveur français de M. Robert-Dumesnil. Tome 2. Paris: Vve J. Renouard, 1860.
For information on a print related to this one, see section titled "582-594. Les exercices militaires," 271.