Virgin and Child with Saint John

Diana Mantuano was the only female Renaissance engraver to sign her prints, as well as the only one to be mentioned by Giorgio Vasari in his 1568 Lives of the Artists. Born into an artist family, she learned printmaking by copying the paintings and prints of other artists, including her father, Giovanni Battista Mantuano. She made this engraving in Rome the same year she moved there and received a papal privilege protecting her prints from copyists. Her plates were evidently deemed valuable, as printers kept reprinting them. This timeless devotional subject appealed to later audiences; the Roman publisher Callisto Ferranti (active 1626–47) made this impression.