About the Artist

“Cornelius Cort was a North Netherlands engraver and draughtsman, active in Flanders and Italy.  His first documented works are a series of engravings issued by the Antwerp publisher Hieronymous Cock, beginning circa 1553.  Cort may have been an apprentice within Cock’s establishment, as none of these prints was inscribed with his name until after the plates had passed out of Cock’s hands.  A letter of 1567 to Titian from the Netherlands writer and painter Domenicus Lampsonius (1532-99) describes Cock as Cort’s master. 

 By 1560, Cort had developed a bold and strongly modeled sculptural style of engraving, influenced in part by the Italian Giorgio Ghisi, who worked for Cock between 1550 and 1555.  Cort was particularly successful in reproducing the Italianate figure compositions of Frans Floris, after whom he engraved more than 50 prints, notably the Liberal Arts (seven prints; 1565) and the Labours of Hercules (ten prints; 1565).  He also reproduced compositions by Maarten van Heemskerck, Andrea del Sarto, Rogier van der Weyden and others while working for Cock.” (Grove Dictionary of Art)

 Livio Agresti, named il Ricciutello, or Ritius, Italian painter, was born in Forli’ in circa 1508 and died in Rome in circa 1580.  He was working in Forli’ (Umbria) and, most of all, in Rome, where he left after himself paintings in oil and frescoes in the modes of Roman mannerism in places like Santo Spirito in Sassia.