Jacopo Caraglio
His career falls easily into two rather different halves: he worked in Rome from 1526 or earlier as an engraver in collaboration with leading artists, and then in Venice, before moving to spend the rest of his life as a court goldsmith in Poland, where he died.
[3] A. Hyatt Mayor describes Caraglio as "the most individual member of the group", who had a particular influence on French printmaking of the First School of Fontainebleau, although unlike Rosso he never went there.
[5] Caraglio was probably trained as a goldsmith before learning advanced engraving techniques from Marcantonio Raimondi, in whose circle in Rome he first appears in records in 1526.
His style is summarized by Françoise Jestaz: "Numbered with Agostino dei Musi and Marco Dente in the Roman school of engravers in the circle of Raimondi, Caraglio showed a greater freedom of line.
With Rosso Fiorentino and Parmigianino, he discovered new modelling effects with subtler lighting and more animated forms, for example in his engraving of Diogenes (b.
[8] They were even used as sources for illustrations in medical textbooks later in the century,[9] as well as one of a set of Flemish tapestries of about 1550, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Having taken citizenship in Kraków, he was knighted (as equitatis aureati), with a patent of nobility, in April 1552, after which he made a brief return trip to Italy.
The royal white eagle has the monogram of Sigismund II on its chest, and the upper background shows the Roman amphitheatre at Verona; on the bench are the tools of a goldsmith rather than a printmaker.
[20] A small number of identifiable surviving works other than prints include signed intaglios in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris (the Annunciation to the Shepherds in rock crystal) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Queen Bona),[21] and an unsigned attributed piece in the Ambrosiana in Milan (Bona in crystal),[22] medals in Padua and elsewhere, and cameos in Munich (illustrated) and elsewhere.
