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Collections

Marco Dente
Entellus and Dares1520-1525

On view:
Geffen Galleries, floor 2
Engraving on cream paper of two muscular men in classical dress wrestling amid ancient stone ruins, with dense crosshatching and a cartouche in the lower right

Marco Dente, Giulio Romano, Entellus and Dares, 1520-1525, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Mary Stansbury Ruiz Bequest, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

Artist or Maker
Marco Dente
Italy, Ravenna, c. 1486 - 1527
Title
Entellus and Dares
Place Made
Italy
Date Made
1520-1525
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
Sheet: 12 1/4 × 10 3/4 in. (31.12 × 27.31 cm) Image: 12 1/8 × 10 5/8 in. (30.8 × 26.99 cm)
Credit Line
Mary Stansbury Ruiz Bequest
Accession Number
M.88.91.19
Classification
Prints
Collecting Area
Prints and Drawings
Curatorial Notes

This engraving depicts a story from the poet Virgil’s Aeneid in which the Trojan hero Entellus fights the young boxer Dares. In the background rises a ruined amphitheater, probably the Roman Colosseum. The print’s composition is a pastiche of at least two drawings after antique sources: the Colosseum is related to a drawing in the Codex Escurialensis, a Renaissance sketchbook of designs after ancient buildings that may share a common source with Raphael’s sketches, and the figures likely derive from a drawing by Giulio Romano, after antique Roman sculptural reliefs. Printmakers like Marco Dente used drawings from collaborators in Raphael’s workshop to create designs that built upon the harmony of classical motifs.

Claire Spadafora Baes

2024

Selected Bibliography
  • Bartsch, Adam von. The Illustrated Bartsch. New York: Abaris Books, 1978.
  • Davis, Bruce. Mannerist Prints: International Style in the Sixteenth Century. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1988.