Detail of a cornice at left; a vase on a metope with bucranium at right

The identity of the Master is uncertain, but his output of over forty engravings makes him one of the most significant printmakers working in Italy during the first decades of the sixteenth century. It has been suggested that he is of northern (German?) origin, but he has also been linked with the sculptor and engraver Agostino Busti (called il Bambaia). The influence of Andrea Mantegna’s engravings is clear in the Master’s work, in particular the figure types and how they are articulated. The technique is also distinctive. It has long been thought that his prints were executed in drypoint, but these impressions (along with other prints) are engravings where the artist has not scraped off the metal raised by the burin (the tool used for engraving the plate) to produce rich and dense black lines.