This charming scene is based the on a small cartouche by Rosso Fiorentino in the Galerie François I at Fontainebleau, found below the large fresco 'The Sacrifice'. Milan however included a more detailed landscape, with the notable addition of a tree at the center of the scene. Depicted is the dance of the Dryads - nymphs or nature spirits of oak trees - around the sacred oak of Ceres, adorned with garlands of flowers as testimonies to answered prayers. In Greek mythology, Erysichthon, the King of Thessaly, had ordered all trees in the sacred grove of Demeter to be cut down and was cursed for this sacrilege.
In Rosso's pictorial scheme at Fontainebleau, the tree is not depicted in the lunette but in the main fresco. According to Panofsky, it represents the dynastic tree of France. 'Dance of the Dryads thus serves as a warning to those who would attack this royal lineage'.
(See B. Davis, Mannerist Prints, International Style in the Sixteenth Century, Los Angeles, 1988, no. 98, p. 220-1; and
E. Panofsky, The Iconography of the Galerie François I at Fontainebleau, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris 1958, p. 125-6.)

The present engraving was formerly attibuted to Milan's collaborator René Boyvin.
Post Lot Text
PROPERTY OF THE LATE PROFESSOR ERIC STANLEY