CALLOT, JACQUES

CALLOT, Jacques. - Incisore e disegnatore, n. a Nancy verso il 1594, m. ivi nel 1635. Nel 1608 giunge in Italia, dopo aver fatto nel 1607 i primi esperimenti nell'incisione.
CALLOT, Jacques. - Incisore e disegnatore, n. a Nancy verso il 1594, m. ivi nel 1635. Nel 1608 giunge in Italia, dopo aver fatto nel 1607 i primi esperimenti nell'incisione.
Image from page 250
Image from page 250

CALLOT, Jacques. — Engraver and draughtsman, b. in Nancy c. 1594, d. there in 1635. In 1608 he went to Italy, having made his first experiments in engraving in 1607.

In Florence in 1611 the Grand Duke granted him a pension and lodging in the palace, and he produced the three plates of *Guerra d’Amore* (1615) and the fifty plates of *Capricci*, depicting various figures (1617); the famous *Fiera dell’Impruneta* dates from 1620. After the death of Cosimo II in 1621, Callot returned to Nancy, where he executed many engravings, including religious subjects still greatly admired today: *Martirio di s. Sebastiano* (1623), *Libro dei santi*. *Le Miserie della guerra* (1633) is a protest against the invasion of Lorraine on Richelieu’s orders, and anticipates Goya’s *Désastres de la guerre* in its boldness.

Callot’s style avoids descriptive detail and is rather directed to the essential and illustrative representation of his subjects. Important drawings survive, many of them in the Uffizi, Florence.

Bibl.: H. Nasse, J. C., Leipzig 1909; L. Rosenthal, C. en Italie, in *Revue de l’art ancien et moderne*, 26 (1909), pp. 23-38; P. Plan, J. C. maître graveur, Brussels 1911; E. G. Troche, J. C., in *Pantheon*, 8 (1935), pp. 343-46; G. Margotti, L’opera religiosa di un grande acquafortista del Seicento, in *Illustrazione vaticana*, 6 (1935), pp. 432-35; P. Fiel, I grandi maestri dell’incisione: C., ibid., 9 (1938), pp. 549-52; E. Doreence, Les chimères du duc Charles III, in *Pays lorrains*, 30 (1938), pp. 409-12; P. Marot, J. C. d’après des documents inédits, Nancy 1939. Angelo Lipinsky