Italian, Rome, probably 16th century

This beautiful intaglio, with its frieze like arrangement of figures with flowing drapery and male nudity, recalls Renaissance engravings by the likes of Giovanni Bernardi and Annibale Fontana. The scene depicts Tarpeia, who was a daughter of a Roman commander Spurius Tarpeius, and who, according to the myth, betrayed Rome for gold and was consequently crushed to death by the Sabines with shields & then tossed from the Tarpeian Rock, which later became a place where Rome's most notorious traitors were executed.

The present model is the only scene with Tarpeia published in Tassie / Raspe (1791; no. 10877). It was previously listed in Tassie's original more limited sulfur catalog as number 2721, which was published in 1775, as 'three soldiers smothering a woman with shields'.