A prolific printmaker and print designer, known only by the small die with which he signed his prints, the Master of the Die was an artist in the orbit of Raphael’s student Marcantonio Raimondi. The Sea Battle serves as a prime example of the revival of Classical style during the Renaissance, as well as an example of the subject matter and designs used for architectural decoration. The mythological scenes on the hulls of the boats suggest simplified, fictive reliefs after the Antique, and could just as easily have appeared on an elevated painted frieze of a Roman palace.