Fantastic River Landscape with Classical Ruins and an Atlantes

An etched and engraved landscape in fine hatched lines. A muscular atlas figure stands at the left, bracing a ruined architrave against his shoulders, while a winding river recedes between broken columns, pavilions and rocky outcrops toward distant hills. Dense foliage frames the foreground, and a small figure rests near the ruins.

Look closer: A small seated figure rests among the ruins near the center-left, beside a broken column.

Artist

Monogrammist DB

Date

ca. 1550

Medium

Etching and engraving

Source

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Size

4000 × 2613 px

Credit (appreciated, not required for public-domain works): The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1996