id: 108353 accession number: 1925.984 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1925.984 updated: 2020-07-21 09:02:36.522000 Descent from the Cross. Ugo da Carpi (Italian, c. 1479-c. 1532), after Raphael (Italian, 1483-1520). Chiaroscuro woodcut; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the President and Directors of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 1925.984 title: Descent from the Cross title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: creation date earliest: creation date latest: current location: creditline: Gift of the President and Directors of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad copyright: --- culture: Italy, 16th century technique: chiaroscuro woodcut department: Prints collection: PR - Chiaroscuro type: Print find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Ugo da Carpi (Italian, c. 1479-c. 1532) - artist Born in Carpi (modern-day province of Modena) in ca. 1468/70, Ugo da Carpi was the first Italian chiaroscuro woodcut designer. Active in Venice from around 1509, he produced several woodcuts from small book illustrations to monumental multi-block prints. Concerned with issues relating to authenticity, Ugo usually signed his works, an uncommon practice at that time. In 1516, he petitioned the Venetian Senate for the privilege of having invented the technique of chiaroscuro woodcut. however, it is likely that Ugo developed his method upon seeing earlier German examples. In his prints, Ugo abandoned the traditional cross-hatching manner in favor of the use of tone blocks. In 1516-18, Ugo moved to Rome and executed the majority of his chiaroscuro woodcuts after designs by Raphael and through the intermediary of engravings by Marcantonio Raimondi and Agostino Veneziano. After the sack of Rome in 1527, Ugo settled in Bologna where he collaborated with Parmigianino, before dying in 1532. * Raphael (Italian, 1483-1520) - artist Raffaello Sanzio (Urbino, April 6, 1483-Rome, April 6, 1520), commonly known as Raphael, was one of the most admired Italian painters and architects on the High Renaissance. He was trained in his native city Urbino, a center of art and culture during the rule of the Duke Federico da Montefeltro. Around 1495, Raphael moved to Perugia and joined the master Pietro Perugino's workshop. He later sojourned to Siena, and then resided in Florence by the autumn of 1504. There, Raphael studied the works by Renaissance masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Fra Bartolomeo, and Masaccio. Raphael is best known for his paintings of Madonnas (from 1504 through 1507), and the frescoes that Pope Julio II commissioned to him in the Vatican Palace in Rome in 1514. The same year architect Donato Bramante died, and the pope appointed Raphael chief architect. Raphael's style was based on clarity of forms and harmonious compositions; after his death, his works were highly admired by both Mannerist and Baroque artists. --- measurements: state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Lower margin, in light tone block: °RAPHAEL°VRBINAS+ Lower right, on the small board, in light tone block: VGO DA CARPI translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE --- fun fact: This three-block chiaroscuro woodcut is known in two states. These differ for a small detail: the inscription with Raphael's name in the lower margin of the frame, and Ugo's name inscribed in the light tone block inside the small board at lower right, as seen in the CMA example. digital description: Ugo da Carpi was influential in the development of the chiaroscuro woodcut in Italy. The term chiaroscuro combines the Italian words chiaro (light) and scuro (dark). Invented to emulate drawings with light and dark pigments on tinted paper, the printing technique uses multiple woodblocks to layer different tones of color.

The Descent from the Cross is one of the earliest chiaroscuro woodcuts by Ugo da Carpi. This print credits Raphael with its design: it was inspired by one of Raphael's now-lost drawings for a scene of Deposition that he should have painted in Loggie Vaticane. In a sketch-like hilly landscape, Christ's dead body is taken down from the cross by four men, one of whom is removing the nail from his right palm. Below, the three Marys attend the fainted Virgin. For this woodcut, Ugo used three different blocks—light brown, dark brown, and black. wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1925.984/1925.984_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1925.984/1925.984_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1925.984/1925.984_full.tif