Antonio Tempesta, known as, il Tempestino (1555 – 1630)

Artist: Antonio Tempesta, known as, il Tempestino (1555 – 1630).
Title: Cadmus's Men Killed by the Serpent (Draco Martius Cadmi socios depascit), from Ovid's ‘Metamorphoses' Plate 22.
Medium: Etching on laid paper.
Sheet Size: Height 12 cm x Width 10.5 cm.
Condition: Very good with wide margins, partial watermark visible under transmitted light, Latin text & number 22 lower margin, right side margin has been restored.
Provenance: Private collection: Netherlands.

About: Plate 22 from the Metamorphoses of Ovid, published by Pieter de Jode in 1606.-Ref. New Hollstein ( Peter de Jode I) 713. Ovid wrote Metamorphoses, a 15-book poem in Latin around 8 CE. The poem is written in hexameter verse and features mythological and legendary stories, many of which are from Greek sources. Transformation, or metamorphosis, is a recurring theme throughout the work, though it may not always be the main focus. Tempesta illustrated this with a series of etchings, this being one of the most exciting of the series.

Born and trained in Florence and known for painting in a variety of styles with his preferred subjects being battle scenes, cavalcades, and processions,  Antonio Tempesta was influenced to some degree by "Counter-Maniera" or Counter-Mannerism and would go on to enrol in the Florentine Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in 1576.

He was a pupil of Santi di Tito, then of the Flemish painter Joannes Stradanus. His qualified years were spent partly as an artist of a large collective of artists working under Giorgio Vasari on the interior decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Later Tempesta would relocate to Rome, where he associated with artists from the Habsburg Netherlands, which may have influenced his hand in landscape painting.