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Lot Essay
Based on Giulio Romano's frescoes in the Sala di Psiche in the Palazzo del Tè in her native Mantua, this print is one of the five engravings for which Diana had - unusually for a printmaker and even more so for a woman - a papal privilege. The carefully worded dedication to Claudio Gonzaga, major domus to the pope, implies that his support may have been instrumental in obtaining it shortly after her settling in Rome.
Her talent and skill as an engraver was spotted early on while still living with her family in Mantua by Giorgio Vasari, who visited the city in 1566 in preparation of his second edition of his Lives of the Artists. He wrote: '...to Giovanni Battista Mantovano [...] there were born two sons who engrave copper plates divinely, and what is more marvelous, a daughter named Diana also engraves so well that it is a wonderful thing: and when I saw her, a very well-bred and charming young lady, and her works, which are most beautiful, I was stunned.' (quoted in: Lincoln, p. 118).
Her talent and skill as an engraver was spotted early on while still living with her family in Mantua by Giorgio Vasari, who visited the city in 1566 in preparation of his second edition of his Lives of the Artists. He wrote: '...to Giovanni Battista Mantovano [...] there were born two sons who engrave copper plates divinely, and what is more marvelous, a daughter named Diana also engraves so well that it is a wonderful thing: and when I saw her, a very well-bred and charming young lady, and her works, which are most beautiful, I was stunned.' (quoted in: Lincoln, p. 118).