Lot Essay
The present sheet is a vigorous early copy after the left half of Mantegna's engraving of the Battle of the Sea Gods, exhibited at the Royal Academy, London and elsewhere, Andrea Mantegna, 1992, no. 79, illustrated. The differences between the drawing and the print are minimal: the background hatching in the former is more extensive in some areas, and the oval mirror among the bullrushes is unadorned. These differences are not sufficient to suggest that the draughtsman was working from a lost preparatory drawing, rather than the print.