Reissue of grotesque ornament print, engraved by Nicoletto da Modena the plate cut down. Italy, second quarter of the 16th century.

Plate 1. Ornamental panel with bound slaves and a birdcage.

From Miller (1999), p. 76- 77

NB: This plate is a reissue of E.180-1885 and is an impression of the lower half of the plate (Hind V, no. 105-IV).

A date of 1507 has been suggested for the first publication of these prints (Washington, p.478), placing them among the earliest prints of their type produced in Italy. The engraver is known to have seen Nero's Domus Aurea in Rome in that year, as an inscription there reads Nicholeto da Modena/Ferrara 1507 (Washington, p.466). It has been suggested (Berliner, 1925-26, p.15 and Washington, p.478) that a figure in a work by Urs Graf, datable to 1512, is derived from one of the plates in the set (B. XIII, 54, not in the V&A), but this apparent relationship has been doubted (Zucker, 1984, p. 228). For a discussion of these images, see Brown, 70A and B, and Washington. The plate order follows Bartsch. Hind's third and fourth state of these prints involves the reworking of the plate as well as the addition of Salamanca's name.

Reissue. First published before 1522

This engraving by Nicoletto da Modena shows a dense grotesque design. Two of the figures in the print are copied from Nero’s Golden House, the wildly extravagant palace the emperor built for himself after the great fire of Rome. Nicoletto scratched his name there in 1507. However, his dense and imaginative style is closer to different types of grotesque designed by the Italian painter Bernardo Pinturicchio (active in the late 15th century), rather than the Roman original. Nicoletto’s grotesque prints were among the first to be published. The theme of the grotesque – referring to designs with human and animal forms and foliage – was a popular one around this period.

E.182-1885