Grotesque Ornament with a Harpy

Used by goldsmiths to create a black enamel background on engraved silver, niello was also utilized to create some of the earliest Italian engravings. Prints were often made with the engraved silver plates so that the goldsmith could check the work’s progress, but these designs soon became a style of printmaking wholly apart from silver decoration. Peregrino da Cesena created engravings in the style and proportions of nielli, many of which draw upon themes and designs inspired by antiquity, such as in this work.

Grotesque ornament—interconnected patterns incorporating scrollwork, fantastic human and animal figures, and vegetation—captured the imagination of Renaissance artists after the late 15th-century archaeological discovery of ancient palaces and villas in Rome and Naples with the decoration on their interiors. Its appeal rested largely in the fact that it provided artists a forum for experimentation with fantastical forms and designs recalling the amusing drollery found in the margins of medieval manuscripts.