
The drawing is blind-tooled for engraving. It is reasonable to suppose that it is the original for the print attributed to Antonio Fantuzzi (Bartsch: Le Peintre-Graveur, XVI, p.433, no.143; Herbet: Les Graveurs de l'Ecole de Fontainebleau, II, p.24, no. 23). The design has variously been ascribed to Leonard Thiry (Jessen: Der Ornamentstich, p.72) and to Rosso (Herbet: op. cit.; Kusenberg: Le Rosso, p.105). A drawing with the exact same composition is kept in Berlin (Kunstbibliothek, Hdz 6560) and could be attributed both to Rosso or Thiry as well. Another drawing, in similar style (Kusenber: op. cit., p.143, no.60, and Pl. LI) in the Bibliotheque nationale de France (Departement des Estampes et de la Photographie, Reserve B6a (1 bis) boite ecu) has a like inscription "Leonard Thierry", apparently in the same hand-writting as the V&A drawing.
Vasari states that Rosso designed goldsmiths work, in particular, plate for the table of Francis I, and this could be a project for one of these pieces, which have since been melted down. But Rosso's assistant, Thiry, also gave a lot of ornamental drawings and the latest studies tend to give back to the student works that had long been ascribed to the master.
Victoria and Albert Museum
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