Caricature of the Laocoön scuptural group, excavated in Rome in 1506

The cutting of this print has long been attributed to Boldrini, whose only definite link with Titian is the signed chiaroscuro of Venus and Cupid (Bartsch, XII, p. 126, no. 29) that bears the date of 1566 and names Titian as the inventor. Oberhuber (1976, pp. 523-528) has challenged the attribution to Boldrini of a group of woodcuts after Titian's design, proposing Giovanni Britto instead, and these arguments have been accepted by David Landau (1983, pp. 333-335) and W. R. Rearick (in Paris 1993, pp. 619-620), although none of these scholars have discussed the Caricature of the Laocoon.


This print is from a scrapbook (album) containing woodcuts and chiaroscuro prints. It was presumably taken apart when it was acquired by The Met in 1922. On the front page of the volume there appeared a statement that this collection was made by the poet Samuel Rogers (1763-1855) and then bought by Angela Coutts (1816-1906) in memory of him at the sale of the collection at his house (28 April – 20 May, 1856). #1615a Rogers Sale. #146 Burdett Coutts Sale (Sotheby’s, May 1922). The prints from the original album have the range 22.73.3-1–22.73.3-161.