A satyr and a ram attacking each other, the satyr weilding a club with his right hand, a shield resting against a small column at center, buildings in the background

Art Historical Context

Behold *A Satyr and a Ram Att Each Other*, a dynamic engraving from around 1515–27, to Marco Dente with publishing by Antonio Salamanca and Giovanni Giacomo de' Rossi. This intimate sheet, measuring just 4½ × 7⅛ inches, captures a fierce mythological clash: a muscular satyr swings a club in his right hand against a charging ram, while a shield leans against a central column amid distant buildings. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department, it exemplifies Renaissance printmaking's precision. Engraved during the High Renaissance, Dente—a skilled pupil of Marcanto...

About the Artist

Marco Dente|Antonio Salamanca|Giovanni Giacomo De Rossi · 1515–1527

Marco Dente (died 1527), also known as Marco da Ravenna, was among the most accomplished printmakers working in Rome during the High Renaissance, a period that witnessed an extraordinary flowering of engraving as both a reproductive and an independent artistic medium. Little is known of his early training, but by the second decade of the sixteenth century he had established himself in the orbit of...