Descent into Limbo
Andrea Mantegna
c. 1465
Medium
Engraving on paper
Dimensions
42.6 × 34 cm (16 13/16 × 13 7/16 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
21335
About the Artist
Andrea Mantegna · 1431–1506
Andrea Mantegna was born around 1431 near Padua, in the Venetian Republic, the son of a carpenter. At approximately age eleven he was taken into the workshop of the Paduan painter and antiquities collector Francesco Squarcione, who enrolled him as a guild member and immersed him in the study of Roman sculpture and classical Latin. Though Mantegna later claimed that Squarcione had exploited his lab...