Joel

A composition by Tommaso Piroli (1750-1824) based on a painting by Michelangelo (1475-1564) depicts the prophet Joel as a man of mature age, seated in an architectural niche, leaning with his right hand against the top of a lectern and unrolling a scroll to read a prophecy. Two boys standing behind him appear to be discussing his prophecies. One reads a book and the other, holding his book closed, comments by pointing his finger at the open text. Joel came from Judah and was active among the Israelites in exile, in the early fourth century BC. He interpreted the plagues that fell upon the Jewish community. He was a prophet of repentance, called for fasting and prayer, and announced Pentecost. The engraving is from the album Le appresso dodici figure si vedono dipinte da Mic. Ang. Bonaroti nella volta della capella Sistina featuring reproductions of 12 prophet and sibyl representations and two boards with representations of Christ's ancestors, as per Michelangelo Buonarotti's frescoes on the vault of the Sistine Chapel. Tommaso Piroli, an engraver and draughtsman studied in Rome, where in 1766, he was awarded the second prize in sculpture at a competition organised by the Academy of St Luke, also in Florence. In the 1780s, he travelled to Naples with Carlo Labruzzi (1748-1817), a painter and sculptor, to draw monuments discovered at the excavation site in Herculaneum. He then made the acquaintance of the diplomat and archaeologist William Douglas Hamilton (1730-1803), who recommended him to the sculptor and draughtsman John Flaxman (1755-1826). In 1806 he returned to Rome and worked mainly as a reproduction printmaker. While working with the Piranesi publishing house, he travelled to Paris and Milan between 1804 and 1807 and 1810 and 1816. He illustrated the works of Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Hesiod and Dante, and made reproductions of ancient reliefs and old Masters' compositions. His reproductions of antique works documented in situ (on site) are still an invaluable source of knowledge on ancient art today. Ewa Gwiazdowska