Vulcan seated hammering on an anvil flanked by Venus and three cupids
ca. 1515–27
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
Sheet (Trimmed): 4 1/4 × 6 7/8 in. (10.8 × 17.4 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959
Accession Number
59.570.295
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the heart of the Renaissance, Marco Dente, a skilled Italian engraver active in Rome around 1515–27, crafted this enchanting *Vulcan Seated Hammering on an Anvil Flanked by and Three Cupids*. a master of engraving—an intaglio printmaking technique where intricate lines are incised into a metal plate with a burin—Dente detailed, reproducible images that brought classical mythology to a wider audience. This small sheet (4 1/4 × 6 7/8 in.), now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department, exemplifies the period's revival of antique themes, likely inspired by designs from...
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...