Standard-Bearer and Drummer
Medium
Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image/sheet, trimmed within platemark: 7 × 4.7 cm (2 13/16 × 1 7/8 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
77463
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Beham’s engraving of two foot soldiers manages to capture the visual bluster and noise of war despite its small size. Both wear mail armor, with the standard bearer also equipped with a cuirass, a kind of breastplate. Yet this piece of armor is an antiquated model, and these figures may in fact be Landsknecht impersonators. The inscriptions identify the drummer as a bumbling “Farmer Conrad” and the standard bearer as “Klaus Swineherd,” a reference to the Bauernkrieg, a major German peasant upris...
About the Artist
Hans Sebald Beham · 1500–1550
Sebald Beham (1500-1550), often called Hans Sebald Beham, was a German painter and printmaker born in Nuremberg. He stands as the most important figure among the Kleinmeister (Little Masters), a group of German artists who created remarkably detailed prints on a diminutive scale in the generation following Albrecht Dürer. Beham's significance lies in his technical virtuosity and unprecedented pro...