The prophet Joel.

Engraving, 46,5 x 57 cm, thick laid paper with watermark, signed and dated with monogram in plate bellow putti's feet "G MF 1540" (upper right corner trimmed off and re-drawn with black ink, wide margin at left, some foxing at lower edge).

Impressive engraved version of Michelangelo's famous frescoes in the pendentives of the Sistine chapel. Giorgio Ghisi (1520-1582) was one of the first printmakers to have copied Michelangelo's frescoes and made them available to a wide audience of Renaissance artists and art connoisseurs around Europe. This fragment was part of a series of 6 prints, representing Michelangelo's Prophets and Sibyls. Good impression of the 4th state (of 5).
Ref. Bartsch XV:18. - Boorsch 44.4.