Master W with the Key
Netherlandish, active 1465-1490
Three-Masted Ship Steering to the Right
INV-8475
Master W with the Key
Netherlandish, active 1465-1490c. 1467
Three-Masted Ship Steering to the Right
Master W with the Key Netherlandish, active 1465-1490 →etchingprint
Date
c. 1467
Medium
Engraving in black on buff laid paper
Dimensions
Image/sheet: 16.4 × 11.7 cm (6 1/2 × 4 5/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Mrs. Potter Palmer, Jr.
This impressive bark (a kind of small ship) on roiling waves is part of a series of nine engravings of ships made by this unidentified master, who has been thought to be the goldsmith Willem vander Cruce, active in Bruges about 1465–90, where there was a major ship-building industry. Some of the prints in the Master W. with the Key’s ship series offer the earliest evidence of new technical advances developed in Bruges. The master is thought to have worked for the Dukes of Burgundy; these unpopulated ships could also depict sculpted table centerpieces from the lavish marriage feast of Charles the Bold, held in Bruges in 1467.