Domenico Beccafumi 1484-1551
Two nudes in a landscape
Engraving combined with two woodblocks, c.1537-40
Founder's Bequest 1816

Perhaps the first of Beccafumi's experiments to print an engraved metal plate with tone blocks cut in wood. Only three impressions are known as Beccafumi intended - the print is usually seen in a later printing missing out the woodblocks. It is clear from the coordination of engraved hatching with flat pools of tone that woodblocks were integral to the design.

The process has technical and expressive affinities with Beccafumi's pavement for the Duomo in his native Siena, in which chiselled and filled black lines were combined with flat areas of coloured marble. The subject, if there is one, remains an enigma.