The Last Supper 1578 | Cornelis Cort after Livio Agresti
The Last Supper; Christ sits with his apostles at a round table; opposite Christ sits Judas who holds a moneybag in his left hand and looks away, beyond are a number of elaborate twisted columns and at the top of some stairs is scene of Christ washing the feet of his apostles; after Livio Agresti. 1578
Engraving by Cornelis Cort after Livio Agresti 1578
Engraving on laid paper with watermark of Grapes lower centre
Size: 49 x 35 cm
Published in Rome
Dedication below right in two lines "Ill.mo R.mo D. Dno Julio Antonio Sanctorio S.tae Severine tt. S.ti Bartholomei / in Insula S.R.C pbro Car.li Dicatum"
This very rare and large engraving has been trimmed down.
$2,800
The composition is closely related to a fresco by Livio Agresti in the Oratorio del Gonfalone in Rome. Cort probably worked from a drawing. In the inventory of his possessions made at the time of his death in 1578 there is in fact a record of a drawing by Livio of the Last Supper ('Una carta cene domini facta manu Livii de Foligno', see Bierens de Haan, p.227). This may have been one of Cort's last works.
Bierens de Haan recorded a copy in the same direction, published by Palumbo in 1580, which has 'Cum Privilegio forma segonda' and 'Michelangulus Marrelli fecit'. Michelangelo Marelli is recorded as an engraver working in Rome in the years 1578 to 1580. It is impossible to know whether the words 'Cum Privilegio Forma Prima' were puton the present plate in 1578, showing that the making of a second plate was already envisaged, or whether they were added subsequently. A precisely analogous case is the Martyrdom of St Stephen by Cort with the address of Palumbo, the words 'Cum privilegio forma prima' and the date 1576 (New Hollstein 79). There is a copy of that too, with the date 1577 and the words 'Cum Privilegio Forma Secunda' (New Hollstein, copy a).
The fact that the notation of a 'first plate' and a 'second plate' follows the announcement of the privilege in all cases, leads one to seek the motivation in a desire to ensure that both plates were effectively seen to be covered by that privilege. It reveals very clearly and unambiguously that copies were made of plates by those who owned them.
This seems to have happened with great frequency in Cort's career, perhaps because of the enormous success he enjoyed at the time. He himself, in many cases, seems to have been responsible for making replica plates (New Hollstein, p.xxix). The probable reason was to allow the printing of impressions to take place in different locations.
(Text from Michael Bury, 'The Print in Italy 1550-1620', BM, London 2001, no. 73.)
Cornelis Cort c1533-1578
Born in Hoorn or Edam, Cort may have been a pupil of Dirck Volckertsz Coornhert in the 1550s in Haarlem.[1] His first known engravings were published in Antwerp around 1553, though it is thought that he remained working in the Northern Netherlands. The publisher was Hieronymous Cock, under whom Cort may have apprenticed as well. A letter of 1567 from Dominicus Lampsonius to the artist Titian described Cock as Cort's master. Plates, which Cort produced for Cock were inscribed with Cort's name only after he left his apprenticeship with Cock.
The Battle of Zama by Cornelis Cort
Cort moved to Venice and lived in the house of Titian in 1565 and 1566. He produced engravings based on Titian's works. Among these are the well-known copperplates of "St Jerome in the Desert", the "Magdalen", "Prometheus", "Diana and Actaeon", and "Diana and Callisto". From Italy he wandered back to the Netherlands, but he returned to Venice soon after 1567, proceeding thence to Bologna and Rome, where he produced engravings from all the great masters of the time.
In Rome he founded the well-known school in which, as Bartsch tells us, the simple line of Marcantonio was modified by a brilliant touch of the burin, afterwards imitated and perfected by Agostino Carracci in Italy and Nicolaes de Bruyn in the Netherlands. Before visiting Italy, Cort had been content to copy Michael Coxcie, Frans Floris, Heemskerk, Gillis Mostaert, Bartholomeus Spranger and Stradanus. In Italy he gave circulation to the works of Raphael, Titian, Polidoro da Caravaggio, Baroccio, Giulio Clovio, Muziano and the Zuccari.
Cort visited Florence between 1569 and 1571 probably working for the Medici family. He returned to Titian in Venice in 1571-1572. He spent the last year of his life in Rome, where he died. His connection with Cock and Titian is pleasantly illustrated in a letter addressed to the latter by Dominick Lampson of Liège in 1567. Cort is said to have engraved upwards of one hundred and fifty-one plates.
The art collector George Cumberland wrote in 1827 that
...if such men as Martin Rota, Cort, Bloemart, or Goltzius, did not often adhere to the style and character of head of the Artist they copied, yet they always gave enough to enable us to comprehend the principles of the composition; and we often have well drawn figures to make us some amends for the loss of sentiment in the heads, expression of hands, or local colouring.