Modeled on the profile portrait of Dante visible in the bottom right corner of Raphael’s (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino; 1483-1520) Disputation of the Holy Sacrament (fresco painted 1509-1510, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City), this copper engraving was produced by French painter and engraver Jean Ernest Aubert (1824-1906) while he was travelling in Rome in the mid-nineteenth century ("Aubert, Jean Ernest,” 2011). It was then printed by the Chalcographie des Musées Impériaux, or Chalcographie du Louvre, probably in the 1850s.
Aubert was the son of the engraver Pierre Eugène Aubert, from whom he learned the craft and with whom he worked on several engravings for the Versailles Galleries ("Aubert, Jean Ernest,” 2011; Spiller 2009). He further studied under Paul Delaroche (1797-1856), Marc Gabriel Charles Gleyre (1808-1874), and Achille Louis Martinet (1806-1877) at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris (ibid). While successful as an engraver, even earning the Grand Prix de Rome in 1844 for his engraving work, from 1851 onward Jean Ernest Aubert turned exclusively to painting (ibid). He is known for producing genre scenes, portraits, landscapes with figures, still-lifes, and panoramas (ibid). Close friends with the painter Jean-Louis Hamon (1821-1874), Aubert also produced several lithographs of Hamon’s paintings, amongst those of other painters such as his teacher Gleyre (ibid). Aside from the 1844 Grand Prix de Rome, Aubert received several other honours over the course of his career: a third-class medal at the Paris Salon of 1859, a silver medal at the Exposition Universelle of Paris in 1878, and the title of Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur (Spiller 2009).
The McGill Library purchased its copy of Aubert’s Dante Alighieri after Raphael in January 1975 from one John J. Graham. It now forms part of the Rare Books and Special Collections Print Collection, along with reproductions of other Dante portraits.
Full title: Dante Alighieri after Raphael.
Author: Jean Ernest Aubert (a.k.a Ernest Jean Aubert; 1824-1906).
Contents: Engraving of a portrait of Dante modeled on a painting by Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino; 1483-1520).
Date of publication: c. 1850.
Place of publication: Paris, France.
Printer: Chalcographie des Musées Impériaux.
Languages: French
Physical description: Copper engraving printed in black and white on wove paper. The engraving, which measures 308 x 230 mm, is centred on a sheet measuring 620 x 430 mm. Immediately underneath the engraving can be read in print, aligned with bottom left corner, “Raphael Sanzio pinxt,” and, aligned with bottom right corner, “E.Y. Aubert sculpt,” in a serifed font. Centred in the blank space beneath the engraving in a larger cursive font are the words “Dante Alighieri,” beneath which, closer to the bottom of the sheet, can be read “CHALCOGRAPHIE IMPÉRIALE,” in an italic serifed font; the ink of the final ‘E’ in “impériale” has faded.
Call number: McGill Rare Books and Special Collections, Print Collections, Portraits.
Catalogue: No online catalogue entry for this item is available at this time.
Digitization: See image included in the exhibition; no external link available at this time.
Previous owners: John J. Graham (n.d.).
Ex-libris and stamps: Under the print, an embossed stamp reads “Calcographie du Louvre.”
History of this copy: The use of the word “impériale” in “Chalcographie Impériale” at the bottom of Aubert’s printed portrait helps to date its production to the 1850s, during the reign of Napoleon III as Emperor of France (1808-1873; imperial reign 1852-1870) who used the word ‘imperial’ to designate works produced under his reign. The portrait itself was likely engraved in copper by Aubert circa 1850, while he was travelling in Rome and would have had the chance to see Raphael’s Disputation of the Holy Sacrament in the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City. The McGill Library purchased its copy of Aubert’s Dante Alighieri after Raphael from John J. Graham (n.d.) in Janury 1975.
Notes: The printed portrait and the stamp under it bear different spellings for the word “chalcographie” (spelling on the print; spelling on stamp is “calcographie”). The printed attribution, “E.Y. Aubert,” appears to have been a misprint for “E.J. [Ernest Jean] Aubert.” There is no mention of an E.Y. Aubert in the available literature, and the Benezit Dictionary of Artists notes that Jean Ernest Aubert, who also went by Ernest Jean Aubert, “travelled to Rome, where he engraved a Portrait of Dante after Raphael,” which is the only mention of this print.
Bibliography
"Aubert, Jean Ernest." 2011. Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Oxford Art Online. https://www.oxfordartonline.com/benezit/view/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.001.0001/acref-9780199773787-e-00008401 (accessed 26/06/2021).
Spiller, Monika. 2009. "Aubert, Jean-Ernest", in Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon Online edited by Wolf Tegethoff, Bénédicte Savoy and Andreas Beyer. Berlin, New York: K. G. Saur. https://www.degruyter.com/document/database/AKL/entry/_10096904/html
Author and date of the record: Cay Rivard, 26/06/2021.
