Miners

Decaris's masterful engraving of miners at work serves as an elaborate stage for exploring various poses of the human body in action. The nearly naked miners are posed in incongruous positions within a frieze-like triptych design that emphasize their musculature. The figurative composition recalls Pollaiuolo's famous 1465 engraving Battle of the Naked Men, which like the present print, studies the human body in action