Mattia Jona, Master Drawings and Prints, Japanese Prints - Piazzetta Guastalla 5, 20122 Milan, Italy, tel (+39) 02 8053315

ERNESTO BAZZARO (Milan 1859 - 1937) NUDE BOY SEATED
Etching, Mezzetti 24. A working proof, touched in pen, printed on thick wove paper, inscribed '7' in purple chalk at the top right corner. Signed in the plate 'Bazzaro E'. On the verso another impression poorly inked and cancelled with ink strokes. Minor defects. To the platemark 181 x 158 mm, the entire sheet measuring 257 x 172 mm.
Amalia Mezzetti described three states for this print, and I have personally seen just the final state. According my knowledge this touched proof is an intermediate state between Mezzetti's second state and the final one. I call it 'intermediate A'. Two other intermediate states between the second and the final are presented here on my website ('intermediate B', 'intermediate C').

A sculptor who also practiced printmaking, Ernesto Bazzaro, the brother of the painter Leonardo, studied at the Brera Academy under Ambrogio Borghi, but was deeply influenced by the anti-academic spirit of the sculptor Giuseppe Grandi and the painters Daniele Ranzoni and Tranquillo Cremona. Ernesto Bazzaro produced many impressive monuments, created figural decorations for Milanese building facades and also produced a number of small bronzes in commercial editions. In the etching technique Ernesto Bazzaro has been influenced by the works of Giuseppe Grandi and Luigi Conconi, the leading exponents of the 'acquaforte monotipata' in Lombardy.