Costume Plate: Peasant Woman from Spain

Art Historical Context

Created around 1555– by the Italian engraver Enea Vico, this small yet detailed print belongs to the Renaissance tradition of costume studies that documented regional dress across Europe. Vico, active in Venice and elsewhere, specialized in reproductive engravings that captured the textures of fabric, embroidery, and accessories with remarkable precision. The modest sheet size—roughly postcard dimensions—made such images easy to collect and circulate among scholars, artists, and curious viewers. Costume plates like this one reflected a growing sixteenth-century interest in ethnography and soc...

About the Artist

Enea Vico · 1523–1567

Enea Vico (1523–1567) was born in Parma and came of age during the final, energetic decades of Italian Renaissance printmaking. By 1541 he had made his way to Rome, where he entered the orbit of the engraver and publisher Tommaso Barlacchi and began his professional career. In Rome, Vico encountered the work of the most celebrated printmakers of the preceding generation—Marcantonio Raimondi, Agost...