Lion attacking a man

Copy, of a niello print formerly kept in the Durazzo collection (n. 2903), now in Paris, Collection Dutuit, Musée du Petit Palais.

The original impression is distinctively marked at the left by a pair of nail or rivet holes in the center of rosette-like ornaments. It is a fine, characteristic example of a Fiorentine craftsmanship of the third quarter of the fifteenth century, and part of the so-called “Finiguerra group” of niello prints. But whether it is by Maso Finiguerra himself or another Fiorentine niellist of the period is uncertain.

It may actually be based on a more elaborate design from the Finiguerra (or Pollaiuolo?) circle, The nielli of the Durazzo collection were reproduced in engravings by the owner himself, between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, in Venice - as also specified by Malaspina in his catalog of 1824 - constituting a series that was circulated and collected by amateurs. Bartsch describes these copies in his volume published in 1811, a date that therefore constitutes the terminus ante quem for the execution.