Giuseppe Cerbara or Niccolò Cerbara

Giuseppe Cerbara was one of the foremost gem engravers in Rome in the first half of the 19th-century. A contemporary of Thorvaldsen, he became a member of the Academy of San Luca in 1812 and went on to become Incisore Camerale to the Papal Mint, and subsequently was appointed Incisore Particolare Dei Sommi Pontefici by Pope Leo XII. He later gained an international reputation, becoming member of the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste in Vienna and then at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Antwerp. His younger brother Niccolò was also an engraver who collaborated with his elder brother at the Papal Mint.

An impression of this model made by William Tassie (1777 - 1860) is recorded in the Beazley archive at the University of Oxford (reference number 1950). The impression is catalogued as 'Aphrodite standing on a shell drawn by two dolphins over the sea'.