Matteo van Platten, called il Montagna - Carlo Gregori

An eighteenth-century engraving by Carlo Gregori depicting the Flemish painter Matteo van Platten, rendered with precise cross-hatching and classical portraiture techniques.

This engraving by Carlo Gregori depicts the Flemish painter Matteo van Platten, known as il Montagna. The work belongs to a tradition of portrait series documenting artists, often produced for scholarly or archival purposes in eighteenth-century Italy. Gregori, a skilled engraver based in Florence, worked from a drawing by Giovanni Domenico Campiglia, as indicated by the inscription at the base of the print.

The portrait captures the subject in a bust-length format, enclosed within an oval frame. The technique relies on precise cross-hatching and stippling to define the contours of the face and the texture of the hair. The subject wears a simple doublet with a wide, flat collar, typical of seventeenth-century attire. His expression is alert, with a direct gaze directed toward the viewer. The background consists of a dense, uniform grid of lines, which creates a sense of depth and focus on the sitter.

Gregori was active in the production of prints for the 'Museo Fiorentino', a large-scale project aimed at cataloguing the collections of the Medici family. This specific print reflects the technical standards of the period, where clarity of line and anatomical accuracy were prioritised. The inclusion of the subject's name and profession at the bottom follows the standard format for biographical print collections of the era. The print provides a clear record of the appearance of van Platten, who was active in Italy during the mid-seventeenth century. The work is a fine example of the reproductive printmaking that allowed for the dissemination of portraiture across European intellectual circles during the Enlightenment.