Vase with a monster at center, two cornucopias, and two flanking winged female figures
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
Sheet: 9 3/16 × 6 1/4 in. (23.3 × 15.8 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Joseph D. Marks, Gift, in loving memory of his mother, Jeanette Marks, 1967
Accession Number
67.845
Tags
Art Historical Context
This intricate engraving, titled *Vase with a Monster at Center, Two Cornucopias, and Two Flanking Winged Female Figures*, exemplifies the collaborative spirit of Renaissance printmaking. Created between 1565 and 1615 by engraver Cherubino Alberti (1553–1615), after a design likely by Polidoro da Caravaggio (c. 1499–1543), it measures a modest 9 3/16 × 6 1/4 inches. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department, it was gifted in 1967 in memory of Jeanette Marks. At its heart is a fantastical central vase dominated by a snarling monster amid writhing snakes, flanked...
About the Artist
Cherubino Alberti (Zaccaria Mattia)|Polidoro da Caravaggio · 1553–1615
Cherubino Alberti (1553–1615), also known by his birth name Zaccaria Mattia, was an Italian engraver and painter active in Rome during the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. Born in Borgo San Sepolcro in Tuscany, he came from an artistically inclined family and received training that equipped him for work in both painting and the reproductive graphic arts. It was as a printmaker, however,...