Martin Schongauer
German, c. 1430/50-1491
Two Shields with a Hare and a Moor's Head, Held by a Wild Man
INV-4011
Martin Schongauer
German, c. 1430/50-14911480/90
Two Shields with a Hare and a Moor's Head, Held by a Wild Man
Martin Schongauer German, c. 1430/50-1491 →engravingprint
Date
1480/90
Medium
Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Sheet: 7.8 × 7.8 cm (3 1/8 × 3 1/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Bequest of Mrs. Potter Palmer, Jr.
Schongauer may have produced his ten heraldic shields in roundels as family crests for the middle classes rather than the nobility. The partially blank areas of the shields and the fanciful figures holding them suggest that the works were not exclusively made for families of high standing but could have been purchased individually and filled in with other family emblems to be used more widely. The depiction of this forest-dwelling wild man, wreathed in vines and clothed only in his own hair, alludes to a simpler time before the advent of civilization, when men were free to indulge all their appetites.
Also notable
Works in the same vein
