Ornamental panel with blank oval flanked by horses

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

The original impression is a characteristic example of a type of niello design that was common at the end of fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century. The style is similar to Peregrino da Cesena’s work and the piece may actually be attributable to him.

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.