Adonis setting out on a hunt. Engraving by A. Campanella after A. Maron, 1779.

Adonis is testing the sharpness of the spearhead with his finger. A hunt servant holds the hunting equipment. A hound looks up at Adonis

The Roman domestic mural painting of which this is a copy was situated in a room that which was dedicated to Adonis (Buti room B)

[Rome] : [Camillo Buti], 1779.

1 print : engraving ; platemark approximately 56.2 x 66 cm

Memoriae Antonii Raphaelis Mengs pictoris philosophi nuper extincti, exquilinam Adonidis venatoris picturam in aenea tabula expressam amicus D.D.D. MDCCLXXIX. Cum privilegio S.S.D.N. Pii VI. Eques Antonius Maron delin. Angelus Campanella sculpsit. Bears number: IV Bears dedication to the memory of Anton Raphael Mengs, who died in 1779

Hetty Joyce, 'The ancient frescoes from the Villa Negroni and their influence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries', Art bulletin, September 1983, pp. 423-440, fig. 3

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, 'Romanizing frescoes: from the Villa Negroni to Ickworth', in Roma britannica: art patronage and cultural exchange in eighteenth century Rome, Rome: British School at Rome, 2011, pp. 193-203 (on the excavation and fate of the frescoes)

Wellcome Collection 662820i

After: a wall-painting which was discovered in Rome in 1777 in the grounds of the Villa Negroni (between S. Maria Maggiore and S. Maria degli Angeli, and later called Villa Montalto), was acquired by the Earl Bishop of Derry, and subsequently perished

One of eight prints dedicated to José Nicolás de Azara, which were subsequently (in 1793, 1800, 1801 and 1802) supplemented by a further four prints dedicated to the Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Derry