Eurydice naked standing on a rock, her arms raised to the right
ca. 1515–27
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
Sheet (Trimmed): 4 3/16 × 2 9/16 in. (10.7 × 6.5 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949
Accession Number
49.97.87
Tags
Art Historical Context
This striking engraving, *Eurydice Naked Standing on a Rock, Her Arms Raised to the Right captures a dramatic moment from Greek mythology. Designed by the Renaissance master Giulio Romano—a pupil of Raphael known for his elegant Mannerist style—and meticulously engraved by Marco Dente around 1515–27, it depicts the tragic figure of Eurydice, wife of Orpheus. Poised nude on a rocky outcrop with arms extended skyward, she embodies vulnerability and pathos, likely evoking the myth where a serpent bite seals her fate, sending her to the underworld. Engravings like this were revolutionary in the e...
About the Artist
Marco Dente|Giulio Romano · 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...