Saint Philippe de Néri - Anne Claude Philippe de Thubières, comte de Caylus

A refined chiaroscuro print depicting Saint Philip Neri in vision, after a drawing by Luigi Garzi, produced by the Comte de Caylus in the eighteenth century.

This print is a fine example of the eighteenth-century French interest in reproducing master drawings through the medium of the chiaroscuro woodcut. The work depicts Saint Philip Neri in a moment of spiritual vision, kneeling before the Virgin and Child, who appear amidst a cluster of clouds and putti. The composition is derived from a drawing by the Italian Baroque painter Luigi Garzi, which was held in the collection of Pierre Crozat, a financier and patron of the arts in Paris.

The Comte de Caylus, a polymath and amateur printmaker, employed a technique that combines etching with woodblock printing to simulate the tonal qualities of a wash drawing. By using a single tone of ink, the print achieves a sense of depth and luminosity that mimics the original ink and wash study. The lines are fluid, capturing the movement of the drapery and the soft forms of the figures with a lightness characteristic of the period. The inclusion of the putto in the foreground, holding a lily, adds a decorative element to the scene, balancing the devotional focus of the saint.

This print was part of a larger project to document the contents of private collections, reflecting the era's fascination with connoisseurship and the dissemination of Italian art across Europe. The inscription at the base provides provenance, noting the original artist and the location of the drawing at the time of production. The work remains a clear record of how French artists engaged with the Italian tradition, translating the dramatic intensity of the Baroque into the more refined, graphic language of the Rococo era.