The Nativity

The Genoese artist Bartolomeo Biscaino's life (1632-57) was cut short by the plague, and little is known about him. He first trained with his father, a landscape painter. In the late 1640s he entered the workshop of Valerio Castello, a painter of violent contrasts and fiery, scintillating color. Biscaino's forms were softer, his brushstroke broader, and his choice of colors more delicate.

Scholars often date Biscaino's canvases on the basis of his forty catalogued etchings, and he remains best known for his drawings and prints. Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, also represented in Te Papa's collection,  influenced the iconography and technique of Biscaino's etchings. In his rendering of animals, figures, and naturalistic settings, and the play of light and shade, Castiglione also provided an important example for Biscaino's later paintings.

Biscaino’s etching of the <em>Nativity with Adoration of Angels </em>reflects this artist's brilliant drawing style and art historians have noted in his work the inspiration of earlier practitioners like Correggio and Federico Barocci. On the face of it, the etching is devout, tender and proper, yet when we examine it more closely, the baffling setting with the manger juxtaposed with broken classical columns, doves perching on an improbable beam, and a soaring heavenly angelic choir, shows considerable artistic license. The broken column, often found in tomb sculpture, indicates a life cut short - here anticipating that of Christ and, very poignantly, Biscaino's. It may also allude to a passage in Psalm xi, 3, which asks: "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?"

The etching was probably published posthumously by a little-known Frenchman, Daman, who acquired Biscaino's plates.

See:

http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2014/12/12/christmas-treasures-from-te-papa/

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=92591

http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/640/bartolomeo-biscaino-italian-1632-1657/

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art     June 2017