1.4 Drawings and prints of the loggia by Joseph-Charles De Meulemeester
After returning to his country in 1819, De Meulemeester was mainly occupied with producing the engravings he wanted to make based on his watercolours of Raphael's frescoes [6-8].1 He travelled around the Netherlands and abroad, exhibited his watercolours, and sought out tenderers for his work. In 1825, Firmin Didot (1764-1836) published a first booklet with four engravings in Paris, and in 1831 a second one.2 A third booklet was completed in 1836, the year of De Meulemeester’s death. However, the publication of the luxurious, coloured edition, the first booklet of which had also been published in 1825, progressed faster: in 1836 the ninth cahier appeared, with the thirty-sixth plate, and the line engravings of the tenth cahier were ready to be coloured.
A few years after De Meulemeester’s death in 1836, his album and copper plates came into the possession of Arnold Lacrosse (?-?), publisher in Brussels. He first completed the series with coloured prints and in 1844 and 1855 published the black-and-white engravings finished by Luigi Calamatta (1801/1802-1869), lithographer, engraver, and reproductive printmaker [9-10].3
The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels hold around fifty preparatory pencil drawings for this engraved version of De Meulemeester’s ‘Raphael Bible’, probably for the 1844 version [11].4
6
Raphael,
God’s Promise to Abraham, 1517-1519,
fresco,
Vatican, Raphael’s Loggia, Bay IV, 2
7
Detail of the drawing after the fresco God’s Promise to Abraham in:
Joseph-François Ducq,
Portrait of Joseph-Charles De Meulemeester Working in the Loggia of the Vatican, 1813,.
oil on canvas 75.5 x 57.4 cm,
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-A-5061
8
Detail of the drawing after the fresco God’s Promise to Abraham in
Pieter Jan De Vlamynck,
Joseph De Meulemeester, graveur né à Bruges en 1771…d’après le tableau du Cabinet de monsieur Van Huerne de Puyenbeke à Bruges, 1836-1837,
lithograph on paper,
Brussels, KBR, S II. 92 434
9
After Joseph-Charles De Meulemeester,
God’s Promise to Abraham, 1844,
lithograph on paper, 535 x 715 mm,
Brussels, KBR, Prints and Drawings, inv. no. R/2009/11 836
10
After Joseph-Charles De Meulemeester,
God’s Promise to Abraham, 1855,
from: De Reiffenberg/De Meulemeester 1855
11
Anonymous after Joseph-Charles De Meulemeester,
God’s Promise to Abraham, n.d,
pencil on paper 352 x 468 mm,
Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. inv. no. 2631/14
Notes
1 In order to make more progress with his work, he had resigned in 1829 as a teacher at the Antwerp academy and settled in Paris. Devliegher 2001.
2 Copy kept in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale.
3 De Reiffenberg/De Meulemeester 1844
4 Brussels, RMFAB, inv. no. 2631: 51: drawings, probably in preparation for the engravings as illustration of De Reiffenberg/De Meulemeester 1844, and not for the more refined De Reiffenberg/De Meulemeester 1855 version. Pencil on squared paper, various dimensions. These drawings are currently considered anonymous but certainly deserve further study.