Woman binding a man to a tree trunk

Copy, on the same verso, from a niello formerly belonging to the Durazzo collection, now in the Rothschild collection at the Louvre.

It belongs to a group of Florentine nielli that have long been associated with the greatest name in the field, Maso Finiguerra, though in some respects it appears to be closer to Pollaiuolo, to whom attributions remain even more conjectural. Blum includes it maong twenty-one pièces attribuées à Pollaiuolo, most of which, according to Laurie Fusco, are actually by Maso Finiguerraor Matteo Dei.

Duchesne identified the subject as an allegory of Love.

The nielli of the Durazzo collection were reproduced in prints by owner’s will, between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, in Venice - as also specified by Malaspina in his catalog of 1824 - constituting a series that was circulated and collected by the amateurs.

Bartsch describes these niello prints in his volume published in 1811, a date that therefore constitutes the terminus ante quem for the execution.