In the northern Alpine region during the early modern period, Lambert Lombard (1505/6-1566) played an important role in furthering and promoting the humanistic examination of local antiquity. The artist visited several cities of Roman origin and drew the artefacts he inspected there.
The drawing on display is a detailed reproduction of the relief on the south side of the Igel Column, depicting the Secundinii at the cloth trade. Lombard most likely added the parts that the relief was already missing at the time. He also left out some compositional elements, however, which is why it can be assumed that the artistic focus of the page was on the study of ancient figures, i.e. the practice of depicting them all’antica – of which Lombard was a key promoter. Lombard founded one of the first ‘academies’ in the northern Alpine region in Liège, where some of the most important contemporary artists were trained in the graphic recording of both local and southern Alpine antiquities, among other things. Lombard also intensively studied Dutch and German art and architecture of the 13th and 15th centuries and exchanged written information on his research developments within both the Dutch and Italian humanist networks.
Further Reading
- Denhaene, Godelieve (Hg.): Lambert Lombard. Peintre de la Renaissance. Liège 1505/1506–1566. Essais interdisciplinaires et catalogue de l’exposition. Katalog zur Ausstellung im Lütticher Musée de l’Art Wallon, Lüttich 2006.
- Kemp, Ellen / Kemp, Wolfgang: Lambert Lombards antiquarische Theorie und Praxis, in: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, Vol. 36, No. 2/3 (1973), pp. 122–152.
- Wouk, Edward H: Reclaiming the antiquities of Gaul: Lambert Lombard and the history of northern art, in: Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 36, No. 1/2 (2012), pp. 35-65.
- Klöckner, Anja: Die sog. Igeler Säule in Druckgraphiken des 16.-18. Jahrhunderts in: Laura Di Carlo / Johannes Lipps / Anna Pawlak / Daniel R. F. Richter (Ed.): Andere Ästhetik meets Andere Ästhetik. Visualisierungen von Antiken nördlich der Alpen in der frühneuzeitlichen Druckgraphik.
- Scholz, Markus: Grabbauten in den nördlichen Grenzprovinzen des römischen Reichs zwischen Britannien und dem Schwarzen Meer, 1.-3. Jahrhunder n. Chr, Mainz 2012 (Monographien des RGZM 103), pp. 161–222.
