The Sacrifice of a Ram; naked man at right guiding a ram towards an altar pyre, hooded priest at left with a young attendant
ca. 1515–27
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
Sheet (Trimmed): 4 5/16 in. × 7 in. (11 × 17.8 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1917
Accession Number
17.50.16-103
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department, *The Sacrifice of a Ram*ca. 1515–27) by Marco D captures a dramatic ritual scene through the precise art of engraving. Dente an Italian printmaker active in Renaissance Rome, was renowned for his intricate reproductions of designs by masters like Raphael andaccio Bandinelli. This4 5/16 × 7 in. sheet, trimmed for presentation, exemplifies engraving's power to disseminate classical and biblical motifs to a wider audience during the High Renaissance, when printmaking revolutionized art access. The composition centers on a tense ...
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...