bas·so-re·lie·vo

(băs′ō-rĭ-lē′vō)

n. pl. bas·so-re·lie·vos

[Italian bassorilievo; see bas-relief.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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References in classic literature

A foreign friend once pointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with the vertebrae of which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relievo, the beaked prow of his canoe.

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Shortly after Banks's death on 2 February 1805, John Flaxman (1755-1826) wrote a 'discourse' on the older sculptor that he proposed to deliver to the Royal Academy, illustrated by 'the two basso-relievos, and the statue of Cupid, now before us'.

Thomas Banks's missing 'Cupid': the sculptor Thomas Banks is currently the subject of an exhibition at Sir John Soane's Museum. Its curator, Julius Bryant, tells the story of one of Banks's most celebrated works, purchased by Catherine the Great, which vanished during World War II

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