Andrea Mantegna, the court painter of the Gonzaga family of Mantua, was also an ambitious and inventive printmaker, and the first Italian artist to realize the potential of engraving to reproduce the subtle gradations of light and shadow possible in painting and drawing. Though only seven plates are attributed to Mantegna with certainty, his prints received greater distribution and were copied more widely that those of any other Italian printmaker of the fifteenth century.

The Battle of the Sea Gods seems to be an invenzione based partially on an antique relief fragment that Mantegna would have seen during a stay in Rome in 1488. The theme of this print is unclear, and it may be an esoteric subject supplied to Mantegna by a court humanist. Crucial to any interpretation of the composition, however, is the haggard woman who stands at left; her identity is revealed as “Envy” by the tablet she holds in her left hand.

The print’s large size was achieved by engraving the composition on two separate copper plates, thus avoiding the problems common to printing on oversize plates. The impressive linear control and parallel hatching of The Battle of the Sea Gods show that Mantegna was concerned with approximating his drawing technique in engraved form, making each impression from the plate as fresh a document from the artist’s own hand as possible.