Drypoint, 1960. A copy from the first edition, printed by Arnaldo Bartoli in Guastalla, consisting of ten unnumbered copies. Pulled on thick, wove paper. Signed in pencil on the lower margin  Antonio Ligabun. In the subsequent edition printed by Alberto Manfredi in 1961 in nine copies, the lower corners of the plate are rounded and the inking is more uniform. Moreover our specimen shows signs of having been printed with greater pressure on one side of the plate than the other. To the platemark 242 x 340 mm, the full sheet 350 x 495 mm.
See Fondazione Archivio Antonio Ligabue di Parma, Augusto Tota, Marzio Dall’Acqua, Catalogo Generale di Antonio Ligabue, Sculture, Disegni e Incisioni, Parma 2020, cat. incisioni, no 55.

Ligabue's relationship with Arnaldo Bartoli (Reggio Emilia, 1900 - Guastalla, 1993), a painter and writer, is well known. Bartoli hosted him for a long time in Guastalla. It was to Bartoli, himself a self-taught engraver, that Ligabue turned for help with printing. Thus, in the early 1950s, Bartoli prepared the plates for Ligabue's first etchings, printing them in a few unnumbered artist's proofs. As a self-taught artist, Bartoli printed with great enthusiasm, but little professional rigor, unlike Alberto Manfredi (Reggio Emilia, 1930 - 2001), the refined etcher and printer who would publish many of the subsequent editions of Ligabue's etchings and drypoints.