Panel of Ornament with a Birdcage
c. 1507
Medium
Engraving on paper
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
23383
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This decorative panel contains themes of war and triumph, presenting the fight above the birdcage while showing a celebratory procession below. The central figure represents a winged genius, possibly Fame, who holds the birdcage as well as palms and two trumpets. There are two figures tied to her, a naked woman and a warrior, and they satisfy the creatures below them with food and drink. Although the print surface is densely covered with imagery, Nicoletto da Modena often engraved his plates qui...
About the Artist
Nicoletto da Modena · 1500–1520
Nicoletto da Modena was an Italian engraver active in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, one of the most prolific and stylistically eclectic printmakers of the early Italian Renaissance. The details of his biography remain uncertain — his precise birth and death dates are unknown, and he is identified primarily through the body of prints that bear his name or monogram. He appears to...