Salvador Carmona, Juan Antonio

18th Century Spanish

Juan Antonio Salvador Carmona came from a long line of artists. He had initially started studying sculpture, and indeed this background stood to him when depicting anatomies, which he imbued with a notable three-dimensional quality. However, after two years as an apprentice in the workshop of the famous engraver and cartographer Tomás López (1731-1802), he decided to dedicate himself to engraving. In 1763 he entered the workshop of his older brother Manuel Salvador Carmona (1734-1820), one of the artists behind the rise of the art of engraving and
intaglio
intaglio is not, strictly speaking, an engraving method as such, rather a type of visual language characterising European printing in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; it is the result of the conjunction of two techniques of chalcographic engraving—
etching
an indirect techniqueof chalcographic engraving. The metal plate is first covered with a protective varnish, on which the engraver draws with an etching needle, ensuring that it touches the surface of the metal plate without producing any furrows. Once the drawing has been made on the varnished surface, the plate is submerged in a diluted acid bath which acts on the exposed metal parts from which the varnish has been removed by the etching needle. Once the lines have been etched, and the plate is taken out of the acid and the remaining varnish removed using a soft cloth and alcohol, it is ready to be inked up and pressed.
and the
burin
the basic engraving tool, a burin is used to engrave on a perfectly smooth metal plate, or on a wood block when used in the woodcut process. It essentially consists of a tempered steel rod with a square, triangular or lozenge-shaped cross section. The cutting edge of the rod is bezelled at an angle while the other end is set diagonally into a wooden mushroom-shaped handle. Varying kinds of cross sections in the cutting edge are used to obtain different types of engraved lines.
—and a normalised method for drawing lines, based on line theory. The concept of intaglio can only be fully understood as the overlap of all these aspects, some technical and others aesthetic.
in Spain, from whom he learnt the techniques of
etching
an indirect techniqueof chalcographic engraving. The metal plate is first covered with a protective varnish, on which the engraver draws with an etching needle, ensuring that it touches the surface of the metal plate without producing any furrows. Once the drawing has been made on the varnished surface, the plate is submerged in a diluted acid bath which acts on the exposed metal parts from which the varnish has been removed by the etching needle. Once the lines have been etched, and the plate is taken out of the acid and the remaining varnish removed using a soft cloth and alcohol, it is ready to be inked up and pressed.
and engraving with
burin
the basic engraving tool, a burin is used to engrave on a perfectly smooth metal plate, or on a wood block when used in the woodcut process. It essentially consists of a tempered steel rod with a square, triangular or lozenge-shaped cross section. The cutting edge of the rod is bezelled at an angle while the other end is set diagonally into a wooden mushroom-shaped handle. Varying kinds of cross sections in the cutting edge are used to obtain different types of engraved lines.
.

By 1764 Juan Antonio was already accepting his own commissions. He engraved a four-plate series on The Seasons of the Year, which he presented to the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1770. The current National Chalcographypossesses the original plate of at least the second of these engravings. That same year he also presented to the Academy three prints copied from paintings by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617-1682): The Wine Grower, The Grape Picker and The Apostle James, which earned him an appointment as a member of the academy.

On returning from a brief period spent in Rome, he engraved two portraits of the Prince of Asturias (1748-1819), the future King Charles IV, and his wife, Maria Luisa of Parma (1751-1819), and in 1781 he made another likeness of the prince, this time in an equestrian portrait.

In 1786 he produced a suite of engravings called The Four Parts of the World (Europe, Asia, Africa and America) following paintings byLuca Giordano (1634-1705) kept at the Royal Palace. This series provides good evidence of the feature that best defines his output, namely, an impeccable rendering of the effects of chiaroscuro. The original plates are kept at Spain’s National Chalcography. He dedicated these engravings to Prince Charles, for which he was appointed Engraver of the Prince of Asturias’s Chamber, a post inexistent until then. In 1789, when the prince acceded to the throne as King Charles IV, Juan Antonio became Engraver of the King’s Chamber.

Also in 1786 he engraved at least two plates for the Atlas marítimo de España (Sea Atlas of Spain), by Vicente Tofiño de San Miguel, one of the most important cartographic enterprises of the eighteenth century.

In 1795 he wrote an autobiography: Noticias de la vida de D. Juan Antonio Salvador Carmona, Grabador de Cámara de S.M. y Académico de la Rl. de Sn. Fernando, relativas a su Profesión y Descripción de algunas de sus obras hechas hasta aquí, a key source for a proper understanding and study of his life and work.

It is generally believed that he died in Madrid in 1805, though historians disagree on the exact date. His file in the archives of the Royal Palace records the year of his death as 1804, but the historian Manuel Ossorio y Bernard claimed that he died on 20 January 1805 and that his family sold 107 original plates to the Royal Chalcography, currently the National Chalcography.