Plate from Veelderlij Veranderighe van grotissen ende Compertimenten (Many variations of grottoes and compartments)

The late 15th-century discovery of the paintings that once decorated the Golden House of Nero in Rome (65–68 CE) inspired early modern artists to show off their own powers of invention. This etching belongs to a series of grotesque designs after Cornelis Floris, created more than half a century after the unearthing of the palace. Submerged over the centuries into what became underground grottoes, the structure’s ancient frescoes featured fantastical masks, satyrs, garlands, and bands of frieze. Floris’s design features satyr families entwined in an armature of strapwork, an ornamental form that included thick bands of geometric pattern. The artist’s idiosyncratic and sometimes bizarre approach to the grotesque was widely imitated and is strongly associated with ornaments produced in mid-16th-century Antwerp.