The Last Judgment
Michelangelo Buonarroti (Italy 1475-1564) (after), engraved by Martino RotaCroatia and Italy (circa 1520-1583). “The Last Judgment”. Engraving on laid paper, with a coat-of-arms watermark, S. 39.3×27.0 cm.
Bartsch 28. 1569.
This is among the earliest engravings of Michelangelo’s fresco on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, which took four years for him to complete between 1536 and 1541. Rota was a draughtsman and engraver. He was born in Sabenico, Dalmatia (now Croatia), and was active in Rome during the 1540s-1560s, after which he moved to Florence and then Venice. Rota used etching and engraving together in his plates and while few original compositions are known by his hand, his prints after paintings by Italian Renaissance masters were important for the dissemination of these images through Europe during the mid to late 1500s. By 1568, Rota was employed at the imperial Hapsburg court in Vienna and moved to Prague in the late 1570s when Rudolf II relocated the court.
PROVENANCE
The collection of Engineer and Major Frank Bensow (1883-1969), with the ink stamp verso (Lugt 982c).