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The Six Saints

Niccolo Boldrini

1535

From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art

Renaissance Renaissance Religious

Dominant colour

The Six Saints is a 1535 by Niccolo Boldrini, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.

Who painted this?: Niccolo Boldrini
When & what style?: 1535 · Renaissance
Where can I see it?: Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

This woodcut shows six robed men standing in a line. The faces are simple and serious. One holds a book. The others have long beards. Boldrini carved these saints in a way that feels almost painted. The lines are deep and the shadows strong. You can almost feel the rough paper under your fingers. Look next at prints by Titian if you like Boldrini’s sharp style.

The story of this work

Overview

At first, Titian utilized woodcut as a medium of direct expression. He most probably drew directly on the blocks for The Submersion of Pharaoh's Army in the Red Sea and prepared several drawings for each landscape print, carefully perfecting the compositions. After 1530, however, Titian no longer created new designs expressly for graphic reproduction. Rather, prints were a means of circulating pictorial ideals conceived for and executed initially in painting. The Six Saints records, in reverse, the group of saints—Sebastian, Francis, Anthony of Padua, Peter, Nicholas, and Catherine—standing…

Read the full account in the museum source.

About the artist

Artist

Niccolo Boldrini

Niccolò Boldrini (c.1500–c.1566) was an Italian engraver of the Renaissance. He was frequently confused with Nicola Vicentino. Boldrini was an engraver on wood, born at Vicenza in the early 16th century, and still…

See the richer artist page