Combat
1620/50
Medium
Engraving on cream laid paper
Dimensions
Image/sheet, trimmed within platemark: 6.2 × 5.2 cm (2 1/2 × 2 1/16 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
23679
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The very small scale and closely trimmed oval shape of this decorative engraving invite close looking. The nude wrestlers onstage in the middle of the scene have discarded their clothing, leaving it in a pile in the foreground. Watching from the sidelines are soldiers in classical armor and nobles wearing the fashionable high ruff of the early 17th century. The central action of the wrestlers is charged with homoeroticism; the two naked men grapple in a tight embrace as each struggles for domina...