Virtue as a young woman surrounded by four figures representing love, error, ignorance and opinion
Medium
Chiaroscuro woodcut printed from four blocks in brown ink
Dimensions
Sheet: 19 1/8 × 13 3/16 in. (48.5 × 33.5 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, by exchange, 1928
Accession Number
28.15.4
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the late Renaissance era, around 1585, Italian artists Andrea Andreani and Jacopo Ligozzi collaborated this striking chiaroscuro woodcut a masterful print that elevates woodblock printing to painterly heights. Andreani, a pioneering specialist in chiaroscuro techniques from Bologna, printed the image from an extraordinary four blocks using brown ink, creating dramatic light and shadow effects that mimic oil paintings. Ligozzi, a Florentine court artist known for his intricate drawings, likely provided the design, infusing it with Mannerist elegance and allegorical depth. At the center stan...