Fame crowning Scipio Africanus

Squaring is a common technique used by artists to transfer a motif from a sketch to an actual artwork. By drawing a grid over the sketch, the motif can be copied section by section onto a canvas, wall, or larger sheet of paper with a corresponding grid. The method ensures the accurate copying of composition, perspective and details from the original sketch. Squaring can also be used in the perspective and scaling of a motif. Using the lines of a perspective grid, the size of an individual figure can be adjusted if, for example, it is to be moved further back in a composition and still be to scale. Here the back of the drawing is squared. This indicates that the artist wanted the drawing of ‘virtue and vice’ on the front to be laterally reversed.