Landscape with Ornamental Frame 1538 - 1560

Antonio Fantuzzi created this etching, "Landscape with Ornamental Frame," in the mid-16th century. Fantuzzi was working at Fontainebleau in France, where the Italian Renaissance style was transforming French art. The print presents an expansive vista, framed by putti, satyrs, and decorative elements. We see a landscape with both classical ruins and contemporary buildings, and the waterways are busy with boats of different sizes and styles. The ornamental frame itself evokes the artifice of royal display, an imagined proscenium for courtly pageantry. The School of Fontainebleau was part of the royal patronage system under Francis I, aiming to create a uniquely French aesthetic. It's worth asking if this print, with its classical references and idealized landscape, reinforces the power and sophistication of the French court. Or does its artificiality hint at a critique of such ostentatious display? To understand this, we can turn to surviving drawings, letters, and inventories from the period, piecing together the social and institutional context in which Fantuzzi and his fellow artists operated.