Four Women Dancing
c. 1497
Medium
Engraving on paper
Dimensions
23.8 × 33.6 cm (9 3/8 × 13 1/4 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
4316
Art Historical Context
Andrea Mantegna's *Four Women Dancing*, created around 1497, is a engraving on paper measuring 23.8 × 33.6 cm, housed in the Art Institute of's Prints and Drawings Department. As one of the leading Italian artists of the Early Renaissance,antegna was renowned for his innovative use of perspective and classical motifs, bridging antiquity with contemporary humanism. This work exemplifies his mastery in translating dynamic movement into precise lines, likely depicting joyful female figures in a bacchanalian revelry inspired by ancient Roman frescoes. Engraving, Mantegna's preferred medium here, ...
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...