This belongs to a group of seven prints thought to have been engraved by Andrea Mantegna himself, most dating to between 1460 and 1480. Mantegna was an ambitious engraver, from the start using large plates of about 50cm. This print was one of the earliest engravings printed from two plates and intended for display as a frieze. The left half was made with a right margin and narrow borderline but the right half had no left margin or border, enabling both prints to be pasted together.

Mantegna favoured the lozenge-shaped burin used in Germany, which allowed for deeper and thicker lines than the Italian ciapolla. He experimented with the depth of tone, in this later work using two different sizes of burin to vary the line thickness. He also combined these with a drypoint for the thinner lines.

The subject of this print is thought to be artistic envy, with the sea-gods being the race of Telchines, who were sculptors and associated with envy in ancient texts. The hag's name is Invidia, (Latin for envy). Mantegna was interested in the antique and visited Roman remains, incorporating the imagery into his work. By 1476 he is known to have owned a sketchbook of 'antique sculpture, of which most are battles of centaurs, fauns, satyrs..'.

Mantegna seems to have taken so few impressions from his prints that even in 1494 Albrecht Dürer could not get one for himself and had to draw a copy. An example of the fluid manner in which designs could be transmitted across media, some elements of Dürer's drawings of this work were used by Hans Sebald Beham for a wallpaper frieze, which in turn acted was source for an ornamental panel by Master C.G. in 1537.