3 - Justo de Justo (Giovanni di Giusto Antonio Betti, known as) (c. 1505–c. 1559)

Justo de Justo (Giovanni di Giusto Antonio Betti, known as) (c. 1505–c. 1559) Nude Man with Raised Arms. Circa 1540–1560. Etching. 99 x 202 mm. Zerner not described. Very fine print on laid paper, trimmed to the block edge. Small trace of a false bite to the left of the left knee. Minimal crease marks. On the reverse, traces of glue in two corners, a small remnant of gummed paper at the top, and handwritten inscriptions in pencil in Italian. AABM stamp (Lugt 3075). A work “by a skilled draftsman and a great original, capable of asserting the impossible with conviction” (H. Zerner, École de Fontainebleau, Gravures, Paris, Arts et Métiers graphiques, 1969, p. XXXV), this Mannerist figure is part of a series of sculptural engravings, including five human pyramids—true masterpieces—commonly attributed today to Juste de Juste. This artist was born in Tours into a family of Florentine origin, the Betti, who settled in France in 1504 and were naturalized in 1513 under the name Juste. His father and uncles were royal sculptors, specializing in tombs. In the 1530s, he was part of the first Fontainebleau school, working first under Rosso and then under Primaticcio, serving as a sculptor on the François I Gallery and other parts of the château (1537–1540). Francis I commissioned him to create marble sculptures of Hercules and Leda and appointed him “Sculptor to the King” in 1553. It should be noted that the monogram seen on the engravings is sometimes also interpreted as that of the engraver Jean Viset, who is documented in Fontainebleau in 1536. Henri Zerner (in his catalog *École de Fontainebleau, Gravures*, Paris, Arts et Métiers graphiques, 1969) lists 17 subjects by this engraver, including 5 human pyramids, with the other 12 being isolated figures of nude men. However, our subject had remained unknown to him and thus constitutes an 18th subject in the corpus.