I Modi: Nine Fragments

This print is organized as a grid featuring a mix of rectangular and circular frames containing detailed studies of nude figures in sexualized poses. The images include close-ups of women's heads in profile, a muscular man in profile, and couples engaged in sexual activity, with figures lying on pillows and draped in fabric. The hatching and cross-hatching techniques define the musculature, facial features, and the texture of the drapery, rendering the scenes with the high technical precision of 16th-century Italian printmaking.

This work is part of the infamous 'I Modi' series, a collection of engravings based on drawings by Giulio Romano that scandalized 16th-century Rome by depicting diverse sexual positions, leading to the persecution of the engraver Marcantonio Raimondi and the destruction of most original copies by the Papacy.