The School of Athens.

Etching and engraving, 46,6 x 40 cm, laid paper with vague watermark, signed in plate at lower right corner "Raphael Urb. In. / Nicolai Nelli Formis" (trimmed to the border, right half missing, some min. foxing).

Very rare print by the Venetian print publisher and printmaker Nicolò Nelli, after Raphael's famous School of Athens in the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican. The print is an almost exact copy after an engraving made by Giorgio Ghisi for the printing house of Hieronymus Cock in 1550. The scene is interpreted in the engraved text at the lower left corner as St Paul preaching before the Philosophers in Athens. Only the left half.
Ref. Boorsch (Ghisi), no.11 (copy 1).
Joined: 1. Chaperon, Nicolas. After Raphael - Abraham and his sons. Plate 15 from the series "Sacrae Historiae Acta a Raphael Urbin in Vaticanis xystis ad picturae miraculum expressa" (54 pl.). Rome, 1649. Etching, 25,5 x 22 cm, laid paper, signed in lower margin "N.C.F." (some def. at left edge, trimmed along the border). Ref. Dumesnil VI.223.23.-- 2. Anonymous. After Raphael - St. Mary Magdalene and St. Cecilia. From a painting by Raphael that was commissioned by Elena Duglioli dall'Olio of Bologna, which originally hung in San Giovanni in Monte but which now hangs in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna (Inv. 577). Engraving, 27 x 19 cm, laid paper, unsigned (trimmed just within the border, some stains, overall a fair impression). (3 pcs)