The Roman goddess Ops, or Opis, was a goddess of fertility and plenty. She is here seen pressing milk from her breasts to feed the animals at her feet. Ops was the wife of Saturn and the mother of several gods such as Neptune, Pluto, Juno and Ceres. She has been identified with the Greek goddess Rhea.
Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio’s print was made after Rosso Fiorentino (1494-1540), whose real name was Giovanni Battista di Jacopo di Gaspares. But he was red-haired and came from Florence and became known as the red-haired Florentine, Rosso Fiorentino. The print was made when he was spending a period of four years in Rome – from 1523 until the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500-1558) with an army of 12,000 men pillaged the city on 6 May 1527. After this, Fiorentino was linked to the court of the French King Francois I (1494-1547) and ended his life in Paris.
