Le Bas Relief aux Trois Amours (The Throne of Neptune)
1519
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
sheet: 7 11/16 x 14 3/16 in. (19.5 x 36.1 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Phyllis Massar, 2011
Accession Number
2012.136.279
Art Historical Context
Step into the Renaissance world with *Le Bas Relief aux Trois Am (The Throne of Neptune, a captivating 1519 engraving by Dente. This Italian printmaker, active in early 16th-century Rome masterfully reproduced classical motifs, drawing from antiquity's grandeur during the High Renaissance. Measuring 7 11/16 x 14 3/16 inches, the sheet captures a bas-relief scene featuring Neptune's throne adorned with playful amours—likely cherubic figures symbolizing love and the sea god's domain. Engraving, Dente's chosen medium, was revolutionary for its precision: incised lines on a metal plate held ink, ...
About the Artist
Marco Dente · 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...