Medal with a Bust of Nero

Daniel Hopfer designed and decorated armor in his adopted city of Augsburg, where Emperor Maximilian I kept an armor-making workshop. The battling centaurs in this etching likely came from Hopfer's repertoire of armor motifs. In the tradition of Augsburg artists, he discovered Italianate motifs early and copied them avidly. Below Nero's profile are freely sketched masks, fluted forms, and winged grotesques with a female head and bird claws.