After Callot's return to Nancy in 1621, it took him two years to regain the sort of official position he had acquired at the Florentine court. Callot spent this period etching prints after drawings he had made in Italy, such as the Balli di Sfessania and the Gobbi series, and reissuing some Florentine prints, such as the Capricci series. The UAG owns the complete set of the Capricci, a series of fifty small prints which was etched twice, first in Florence in 1617 and then in Nancy five years later. The set was dedicated to Don Lorenzo de' Medici. Some of the Capricci depict festivals which took place in Florence but the majority portray figures such as peasants, soldiers, aristocrats and comedians engaged in their respective activities:
Caption: Frontispiece Caption: Violonist
While the sets from Florence and Nancy are identical, they differ in terms of technique. The prints etched in Nancy display a greater firmness of line and are better impressions. These changes illustrate Callot's technical developments [see the document entitled `Jacques Callot and the Art of Printmaking']. Below are two identical prints, one of which was etched in Florence and the other in Nancy:
Caption: Nobleman, Front View Caption: Nobleman, Front View
Callot's marriage to the well-to-do Catherine Kuttinger in 1623 coincided with the first indication of patronage from the Court of Charles IV of Nancy. This support proved to be unfailing. From 1623 until his death in 1635, Callot never lacked commissions and enjoyed a bourgeois life in Nancy.
During this period, however, turmoil reigned in the Duchy of Lorraine. Charles IV married the Duchess Nicole, heiress to the duchy and plotted to push her aside in order to rule as Duke rather than as Consort. Badly advised by Marie de Rohan-Montbazon, the Duchess of Chevreuse, Charles IV also supported the English coalition against France and protected Gaston of Orléans, provoking the fury of Cardinal de Richelieu. To make matters still worse, the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) devastated and brought the plague to the Duchy.
In the seventeenth century, the print trade was still somewhat attached to the book trade and very lucrative, so these political events did not disturb -- and may even have furthered -- Callot's career. The artist travelled freely in France, in the Duchy of Lorraine and in the Netherlands and received commissions from King Louis XIII of France, the Cardinal de Richelieu, the Duke and Duchess of Lorraine and the Spanish Infanta. On a personal level, however, the war did take its toll: Callot's father died of the plague in 1631.
In his The Place de la Carrière at Nancy, Callot creates a panoramic view of the public square
of Nancy, here called carrière or sometimes Rue Neuve, where tournaments took place and where
the artist lived. It is unclear whether or not Callot was depicting a specific festival, but according
to a contemporary map his depiction, with the ducal palace in the background, aristocrat's houses
on the right and modest houses on the left, is accurate:
Caption: The Place de la Carrière at Nancy
Callot's The Palace Gardens at Nancy, however, does not present an accurate view of the gardens of the ducal residence. Callot replaced the existing Orangerie (on the right) with a building recalling a Florentine villa:
Unlike the Court of Florence, the Court of Charles IV organized only a few festivities. The Combat at the Barrier, which celebrated the official Entrance of the Duchess of Chevreuse in Nancy on February 27, 1627, is a rare example. The Duchess had been exiled from France because of her intrigues against the king; hence, on a political level, these festivities and their commemorations were bold. Callot was asked to contribute to the ephemeral decorations for the feast and to create ten prints to illustrate the booklet produced by the poet Henry Humbert for the occasion. The Entrance of the Duke Charles IV, which cast Charles as the sun king, Apollo, represented the height of the festivities.
Caption: The Entrance of the Duke Charles IV Caption: The Combat
Although Jacques Callot was a court artist in Nancy, he produced very few portrait commissions. His series, The Nobility of Lorraine, which is sometimes considered to be portraits of individuals, is actually a series of fashionable representations of aristocratic types. This series is discussed in the document entitled `Paupers and Nobles: Jacques Callot's Human Comedy.'
While these earlier prints depicted court festivities, Callot's mood appears to have become more somber in the latter part of his life, as suggested by his prints showing the Miseries of War. This series is discussed in the document entitled `The Military Prints of Jacques Callot.'
The other fundamental aspect of Callot's late production, his religious prints, had not been discussed by scholars until recently. Between 1631 and 1635, Callot executed 600 religious prints. These prints are discussed in the document entitled `The Religious Prints of Jacques Callot.' The series entitled The Life of the Virgin, which is remarkable for its iconography, consists of one frontispiece and thirteen prints, all present in the University collection. In this series, Callot included traditional episodes from the Virgin's life, such as The Presentation of Christ to the Temple.
Nevertheless, he also depicted two scenes from the Virgin's life, The Burial of the Virgin and The Virgin with her Attributes, that other artists rarely represented.
Caption: The Burial of the Virgin Caption: The Virgin with her Attributes
Jacques Callot seems to have had little contact with the other major seventeenth-century artists from Lorraine. Georges de la Tour worked in isolation in the small village of Lunéville. Claude Lorrain left for Italy where his career flourished. Callot knew Claude Deruet, who held the prestigious position of court painter to the Duke of Lorraine. Deruet, however, worked in an old-fashioned style which Callot would not have found stimulating.
Jacques Callot's oeuvre lends itself to categorizations, such as the theater, the war, the representation of rich and poor and so forth, which reflect fundamental aspects of seventeenth-century life in Italy and France. The remaining sections of this document explore Callot's production within its social and historical context.
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