Martyrdom of St Cecilia

Marcantonio Raimondi
Italy
c.1470-82 – 1527-34

after Raphael (Raphaello Sanzi or Sanki)
Italy
1483 – 1520

Martyrdom of St Cecilia
c 1520-25
engraving on paper
Place made
Rome
Medium
engraving on paper
Dimensions
24.0 x 40.6 cm (plate)
24.0 x 40.8 cm (sheet)
Credit line
David Murray Bequest Fund 1949
Accession number
4910G169
Signature and date
Signed in plate, c.r., "MAF" in monogram. Not dated.
Catalogue raisonne
B. XIV. 104. 117; Shoemaker 55
Media category
Print
Collection area
European prints

  • WALL LABEL: A Beautiful Line: Italian prints from Mantegna to Piranesi, 2012

     

    This print is thought to be based on Raphael’s design for the fresco in the chapel of the Villa Magliana, a papal retreat outside Rome. It depicts St Cecilia being boiled alive in a cauldron of oil as the severed heads of her husband and brother-in-law are held up in front of her. The subject was commissioned for the Villa Magliana by Pope Leo X in about 1517-20, on the land where the martyrdom was thought to have taken place. Raphael’s treatment of this gruesome subject is informative rather than emotive, and Marcantonio’s translation of the composition in line is clear yet static. 

     

    Maria Zagala, Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings & Photographs

  • A beautiful line. Italian prints from Mantegna to Piranesi

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 20 August 2010 – 31 October 2010