Little is known of Boldrini. He came from Vicenza; he was active in Venice; and he married in 1547. His only dated woodcut is from 1566, cut after Titian. His earlier woodcuts, from the 1630’s, are monochrome and in the later 1560’s he turned to chiaroscuro woodcuts.

Earlier cataloguers have mistakenly described this print as after Titian, but it is essentially Boldrini’s own genre design, though ultimately the figure of the woman carrying the geese is taken in reverse from an early engraving by Schöngauer, Peasant Family going to Market; Boldrini has omitted the child’s ‘hat’ and puts his arms firmly round the woman’s waist. A colt accompanies the horse, rather than it being led by a peasant man; the landscape too is Boldrini’s own. (Nicoletta da Modena (active 1500-1511) had also copied the Schöngauer engraving which may have been Boldrini’s source.)

This woodcut would seem to only be known in monochrome impressions. Two ‘companion’ genre subjects from the same period, The Hare Hunter (in which the horse is taken from a Cranach woodcut) and Boy with Bull, are found either printed just from the key block, or as chiaroscuros with a second colour block.

Rosand & Muraro (Titan & the Venetian Woodcut) 77 ; Passavant VI.242.95. On laid paper, trimmed to the borderline. A few thin patches verso, and a few unobtrusive pinprick holes.