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Lafréry, Antoine
Horsetamers on Quirinale, from back
1550
This large engraving formed part of Antoine Lafréry’s Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae (1575), a collection of prints that purported to be the most comprehensive compendium of all the monuments and antiquities of Rome. These colossal statues, possibly representing the mythical half-twin brothers Castor and Pollux, are Roman copies after Greek originals and were described by a seventeenth-century theorist as fundamental to the understanding of equine anatomy. Their fragmentary state is emphasized by the view from behind, which reveals significant cracks, losses and surface wear.
 
Lafréry, Antoine
Orgelet-le-Bourget, France 1512–Rome, Italy 1577
Horsetamers on Quirinale, from back
1550
Engraving on paper
34.6 x 48.9 cm
Gift from the estate of Mabel E. Segsworth, through the Queen's University Art Foundation, 1944
00-1016

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