Adoration - Jacques Blondeau

This beautiful engraving was created by Jacques Blondeau, a famous Flemish engraver active in the 17th century. The drawing for this engraving, as shown at the bottom left, was created by the painter Filippo Zucchetti, an artist active between 1694 and 1712. The subject of the work depicts four saints adoring the Madonna and Child in the heavens, surrounded by angels.

The work is a perfect example of 17th- and 18th-century engraving, which signifies an exaltation of the values ​​of drawing and form over the original pictorial model. Indeed, compared to the paintings of Filippo Zucchetti, whose Baroque style exhibits a pervasive atmosphericism and theatricality typical of that aesthetic, Blondeau's engraving emphasizes plasticity. Indeed, we find an almost multiplication of forms, both of the figures and the clouds. This is the very essence of engraving: maximizing the potential of drawing. For this reason, the scene is depicted in every minute detail with a decidedly classical spirit due to the monumentality of the forms. The overabundance of elements in the composition, however, is attributable to a substantially Baroque spirit, akin to the period in which the work was produced and the cultural environment in which Blondeau's engravings developed. From a formal point of view, we can admire the excellent technique that characterizes this artist and which made him famous in his time, made up of an extremely fine hatching that outlines each subject with extreme precision.

Jacques Blondeau (also known as Jacomo Blondel), born in Antwerp in 1655 and died in Rome in 1698, was a Flemish engraver. He was a pupil of the Belgian engraver Frederik Bouttats the Younger. After living for a time in Paris, he moved to Rome in 1675, where he continued to live and work for the rest of his life. He became a member of the Bentvueghels, an association composed almost entirely of Dutch and Flemish artists working in Rome. His nickname within the group was Weyman, meaning "Lark Man." Blondeau was a particularly active member of the congregation and his name appears a couple of times in the history of the Bentvueghels. He engraved numerous portraits, including one of Pope Urban VIII and several cardinals. He was also in Florence, where he made numerous engravings, with Abraham Bloemaert and François Spierre, from the frescoes of Pietro da Cortona in the Pitti Palace.

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