Ornament with Women Fighting
c. 1460
Medium
Engraving on cream laid paper
Dimensions
Sheet trimmed within platemark: 9.5 × 13.6 cm (3 3/4 × 5 3/8 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
19508
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Master E. S., perhaps the most significant Northern printmaker working prior to Martin Schongauer, popularized this type of ornamental motif, which was widely used as a decorative model for later artists. This particular image depicts five naked women entangled in a mass of vines and leaves, fighting over undergarments to cover their exposed bodies. The comical subject reflects a sort of grotesque humor often found in engravings by Master E. S., especially his Fantastic Alphabet.
About the Artist
Master E.S. · 1450–1467
Master E.S. was a pioneering German engraver active in the middle decades of the fifteenth century, known only by the monogram with which he signed a number of his prints. His precise identity — name, birthplace, and biography — remains unknown, but his signed works, along with a larger group of prints attributed to him on stylistic grounds, place his activity primarily in the Upper Rhine region, ...