Battle of the Sea Gods: Right Half of a Frieze
1470/1500
Workshop of Andrea Mantegna Italian, 1431-1506
Italy
Andrea Mantegna’s Battle of the Sea Gods may be the first print with a unified composition occupying more than one sheet. Unlike the Andrea Andreani Triumph of Caesar (1926.452.2–9) and the engravings after the same Mantegna paintings by his own workshop, this mythological frieze has only one seam and no disguising columns. Albrecht Dürer drew a copy of the right half of the frieze in 1494, already establishing the seminal importance of the work in the Renaissance.
Engraving in black on ivory laid paper, discolored to grayish brown