Roman bas-relief with sacrifice.

Engraving, 27 x 42 cm, laid paper with watermark (Briquet: 7579), signed at lower right corner "Ant. Lafrery" (several old repairs with paper strips on verso, dark stain in text margin at lower right edge, plate sl. worn at right side).

Loose sheet.

This engraving shows the "suovetaunilia", the combined sacrifice of a whole pig, a sheep and an ox, the principal animals of the farmer, and sacred to Mars. The printmaker mentions in the lower text margin that his design documents a marble frieze found in a wall of a building on the Campus Martius; it is today in the collection of the Louvre. The print was collected as part of the "Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae". First state with Lafreri's publ. address. Almost identical to the copy in the British Museum (inv: 1947,0319.26.154).
Ref. Christian Huelsen, "Das Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae des Antonio Lafreri", 1921, no. 52.
Prov. Geraldine Jones, the first woman president of the Oxford Union (ownership label on verso).