Bartolomeo Coriolano

Warrior and Drinker, Mars and Bacchus represent two types of man and two different seasons, as indicated by the signs of the zodiac in each print. Aries (the Ram), usually March 21 to April 19, accompanies the warrior, Mars. The ancient Romans named the month of March for Mars, and started their military campaign season on March 1. Scorpio, usually October 23 to November 21, encompasses the harvest, especially the grape harvest, the time of Bacchus. Goltzius printed the earliest impressions of these images in tan, green, and black; followed by those in ochre, brown, and black; before the last impressions in three shades of brown.
Gift of Henry D. Sharpe. 50.147, 50.146

John Baptist Jackson
British, ca. 1701-ca. 1777
After Paolo Veronese
Italian, 1528-88
Marriage at Cana, from the series, “The Venetian Set,” 1740
Chiaroscuro woodcut on two sheets from five blocks in light tan, dark tan, light brown, brown, and dark brown

After experimenting with chiaroscuro prints in Paris, Jackson developed his methods further in Venice, where in 1735 he designed a cylinder press capable of printing larger sheets under greater pressure. Jackson was introduced to Zanetti, whose prints he later dismissed as “a trifling Performance” (see Jacob Kainen, John Baptist Jackson: 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut, no. 222, United States National Museum Bulletin, Smithsonian Institution [1962], p. 25). He was critical particularly of their having been hand-printed, rather than done on a press. Jackson turned to the challenge of reproducing oil paintings to capitalize on the market for images of paintings seen by British and other travelers on the Grand Tour. The ambitious “Venetian Set” reproduces 17 different paintings, often printed on two or more sheets. Commissioned by British consul and renowned collector Joseph Smith, the series sold by subscription and took four and half years to complete. Despite artistic success, it was a commercial failure. Jackson returned to