Various Cartouche Designs

Fourteen prints with cartouche designs by Francesco Herrera the Younger, pasted into the album, two to a page. One of the prints on page 50 of the album stands out from the group. It shows a design for a cartouche with a crown, and is further decorated with a cherub and two hanging festoons. The central compartment is shaped for the inclusion of a coat of arms, but left blank. The other thirteen prints contain larger cartouches that differ in form and execution. The style of engraving is loser, and in certain areas outlines are fully omitted or only executed with a stylus. The prints are all cut within the plate marks at various sizes, which makes it difficult to tell whether they all derive from one and the same series. Only one set of 12 prints is known (documented in SKB Berlin 1939), but the number of plates in this album suggests that Herrera issued more than the single set. Herrera likely made the prints while in Italy. That Herrera's stay in Rome coincided with the production of the prints appears to be confirmed by their use as frontispieces in several manuscripts kept in the Santa Maria in Monserrato degli Spagnoli in Rome. Their presence in this album may be taken as further evidence of this sequence of events. For Herrera's prints, see Navarrete Prieto 2023.