Baby and Three Cats
Engraving c1512
Size of original 86 x 71mm, 3 6/16 x 2 3/4 inches
This charming small print survives in only a single impression, which is in the British Museum. This, and its extremely informality suggest it may have been made as a technical experiment. The subject appears to have been sketched by the artist whilst lying on the floor. Our reproduction is slightly larger than the original.
The intimacy and humour of the print give it the feeling of a family snapshot. However, nothing is known of Campagnola’s family life except that he adopted a pupil, Domenico Campagnola, himself later a notable artist and printmaker, who was born about 1500 and so was much too old to be the child depicted here.
Apart from the main outlines and the floor, which are created by lines, the whole print is in the stipple or dotted manner which Campagnola effectively invented. Other artists, notably Dürer had used dots to achieve particular local effects, but Campagnola was the first to conceive entire prints in this way.
In three prints that are considered to be earlier than this, the Astrologer, the Old Shepherd and the Young Shepherd (which we also reproduce), Campagnola first engraved the subject entirely in line. Only a single impression of each of these first states has survived, in Berlin, Paris and the British Museum respectively. He then reworked the plates, adding dots which almost completely conceal the lines over large areas of the print – almost all of it in the case of the Young Shepherd.
Whether this was always his intention with these prints is unclear. The Astrologer and the Old Shepherd look finished images in their first state, whereas the Young Shepherd, though beautiful, looks rather too light and even in tone to be so. The Paris first state Old Shepherd is described by David Landau as a late impression, showing signs of wear to the plate after a number of impressions had been printed.
In the Baby and Three Cats only the barest outlines are done in line, and it is very clear that the stipple work was intended from the start. He uses stipple to convey the texture of skin, fur, and the various vertical surfaces, mostly with a much lighter fill than he used in the three earlier prints.
He was to use a similar outline and stipple technique in later prints, such as the Stag at Rest, Chained to a Tree. In his Venus Reclining in a Landscape he dispenses entirely with line work, and the whole print is in stipple. The Baby and Three Cats may well have been an experiment in full stipple technique.
A few prints were made by other artists using a similar technique in the years immediately following, but then full stipple technique was effectively put aside until the C18, when it was revived in England and then France, and was for a time much practised, mostly for decorative and reproductive prints.
Click image to enlarge
Size of reproduction:
110 x 90 mm, 4 5/16 x 3 9/16
Print price:
£17 €25 $28
£ and € print prices include UK VAT at 17.5%. No UK VAT on Books.
© The Trustees of the British Museum 2006 PD 1861-4-13-489
