Trojans Repelling the Greeks

The Mantuan printmakers Giovanni Battista Scultori and his daughter, Diana Scultori (also known erroneously as Diana Ghisi), were both described in Vasari's Lives in 1568. She was of the first women printmakers to sign the majority of her works; indeed Vasari included very few other female artists of any kind. Giovanni Battista taught Diana and her brother Adamo to engrave, and both went on to print careers in Rome. The two Lieberman works from this artist family are both copied after Giulio Romano, the court painter at Mantua. They depict scenes from the Trojan War in a relief-like style that shows the painter's interest in antique sculpture, particularly the friezes from sarcophagi. Giovanni Battista shows an unspecified battle held simultaneously on land and sea; as the Trojans push the Greeks back into the water, the allegorical figureheads of the ships blend into literal sea-horses. The level of armorial detail is so high that it is difficult to ascertain which side is which. In contrast, Diana's engraving highlights a pause in the Greek-on-Roman action. Achilles' close friend Patrols has borrowed that celebrated fighter's armor to rout the encroaching Trojan army. Having pushed them too far, he is killed for his hubris by Apollo. In the quiet center of the composition, he falls soft and naked over the knee of his mourning companion.