Niccolò Boldrini

Niccolò Boldrini was born c1500 in Vicenza, in northern Italy.

There is little documented of his personal life or upbringing, but what we do know is that he was an engraver on wood, that he worked with Titian in 1566 and that he is responsible for the following works: John Baron de Schwarzenburg (after Dürer), The Wise Men’s Offering, St. Jerome praying in landscape, Six Saints including Catharine & Sebastian, Mountainous landscape with woman milking cow and Venus seated on a bank holding Cupid, Squirrel on a branch (all after Titian).

Many discussions have been held as to why Titian chose to depict the Caricature of the Laocoön Group scene, which Boldrini went on to make on woodcut. Some argue that it was an attempt to free his inventive mind from the influence of this sculpture for all future works whilst others suggest it was a response to a substandard work by an Italian sculptor of around that time. It is rumoured that Titian was actually his master and that he worked under him for a number of years before he died in Venice in c1566.