A rare female artist, Diana Mantuana's engraving of Atilius Regulus in a Barrel plays an important role in the history of the practice of printmaking and its reception in Renaissance Italy.

In earlier decades, retouching (or “inpainting”) using reversible painting materials would have been employed where compositional elements were missing.

Agrippina the Younger watches as men of the emperor move nearer and nearer to her. They carry weapons. Having survived one attempt on her life, she knows that she will not survive another.