6. Léon Davent (Master L.D.) ?
(fl. 1540-1565)
Landscape with Ancient Ruins and Three River Gods

(click on image to print)
Davent, Landscape with Ancient Ruins

Landscape with Ancient Ruins and Three River Gods

Etching, ca. 1550, Herbet 212 ? and ref. Zerner L.D. 95, 163 x 240 mm. Fine impression on laid paper with the watermark of a crescent and flower above the name EDMONDENISE (Briquet 5304, France, Netherlands, Germany, 1559-1588), with narrow margins on all sides. Of all the prints associated with the School of Fontainebleau, perhaps the most mysterious, and certainly the least studied, is the group of small landscape etchings, possibly after Jean Cousin the Younger, generally ascribed to Léon Davent. A number of those prints are signed with an L.D. monogram, but some (such as this one) are not. Zerner has suggested that those that lack the monogram may have been both designed and etched by Cousin the Younger, although not every print today given to Davent is signed by him. Whatever the authorship, this is a strange image, the river gods in the foreground setting off a hilly landscape with the most mutually contradictory architectural elements imaginable, as if individual memories were juxtaposed in a dream. Though most, if not all of these elements might perhaps be found in Rome, their arrangement here is not to be found anywhere in reality. Needless to say, a rare print, virtually never on the market.