Dominique VIVANT DENON (Chalon-sur-Saône 1747 - Paris 1825) Twelve self-portraits by Italian painters: Agostino Carracci, Tintoretto, Domenico Zampieri, Michelangelo, Felice Brusasorci, Primaticcio, Titian, Andrea del Sarto, Le Barroche, Pietro di Cortona... Twelve drawings on a single mount, black stone, pen and black ink. Some titled at the bottom. Titled on verso in pen and brown ink. 6.5 x 5 cm each (57 x 73.5 cm) PROVENANCE: Vivant Denon sale, Paris, April 1-19, 1826, no. 929. Our drawings were probably made between September and October 1789, while Vivant Denon was working at the Uffizi Museum, although none of the necessary authorizations for copying these self-portraits have been found. Another hypothesis is that most of these portraits, not belonging to the Uffizi collections or bearing little resemblance to the models, were copied from drawings or reproductions during his stay in Venice. Forty-five portraits were engraved in Venice and published in a collection under the title Ritratto dei piu celebri pittori da loro stessi, offered for sale in Paris in 1793-1794.