Horsing Around
[VAN DER STRAET, Jan, after.]
[Imperatorum XII a Suetonio descriptorum effigies & resque gestae, iconibus fideliter expressae. Netherlands or Rome, early seventeenth century.] [Netherlands or Rome, early seventeenth century.]
Twelve single-sheet engravings (each c. 360 x 250 mm, plates c. 330 x 220 mm), numbered in the plates (1–12), each with 6 lines of engraved verse at foot; without the title plate, a few very slight spots, but generally very well preserved.
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[Imperatorum XII a Suetonio descriptorum effigies & resque gestae, iconibus fideliter expressae. Netherlands or Rome, early seventeenth century.]
A set of large-format equestrian portraits of the Twelve Caesars, from Julius Caesar to Domitian, with a rich array of scenes from their reigns both in the background and on their pedestals.
Designed by Jan van der Straet (or Stradanus, 1523–1605), the engraved portraits are notable for the lively scenes illustrating each emperor’s reign: alongside many military and naval scenes, they depict also Caesar’s and Caligula’s assassinations, Tiberius’ notorious palace on Capri, Rome in flames behind Nero and beneath his lyre-playing and his suicide, the suicides of Otho’s soldiers around his funeral pyre, and Vesuvius erupting behind Titus.
The unsigned plates are reversed copies of those engraved by Adriaen Collaert and published by Philips Galle in Antwerp c. 1587–1589. According to the New Hollstein (Collaert, 1178–1190), this set could be the one engraved in Rome by Raffaello Guidi and published by Cesare Capranica; state II of Guidi’s plates has the plate numbers, as here (the imprint would have appeared on the title plate, not here present). The prints from this set in the British Museum, dated to before 1601, do not contain the plate numbering (1948,0315.1.10, Claudius).
cf. New Hollstein, Stradanus, 309–320 & Collaert, 1179–1190.