The King's Sons Shooting Their Father's Corpse

Art Historical Context

Created around 1500 by the enigmatic German printmaker known as Master MZ, this engraving captures a striking and enigmatic scene. The artist, active during the flowering of Northern Renaissance printmaking, used the medium’s fine lines and tonal contrasts to depict a dramatic moment involving kings, archers, horses, and a royal corpse. Engravings like this one allowed intricate narratives to circulate widely beyond palace walls, reaching a growing audience of collectors and scholars in the early age of print. The work’s small scale—roughly the size of a sheet of paper—belies its narrative ambition. Master MZ’s precise burin work brings together men on horseback, royal figures, and the central corpse in a tightly composed outdoor setting. Such images often drew on medieval legends or moral tales exploring themes of legacy, judgment, and the transfer of power, inviting viewers to ponder the story behind the unusual act. Today in the Metropolitan Museum’s collection, the engraving stands as a fascinating example of how early printmakers blended storytelling with virtuosity, preserving vivid, sometimes unsettling episodes from history and myth for generations to come.

About the Artist

Master MZ · 1477–1525

The artist known as Master MZ is one of the most accomplished and enigmatic printmakers of the German Renaissance, active around the turn of the sixteenth century. The designation derives from the monogram MZ with which the artist signed a small but technically extraordinary group of engravings, and despite sustained scholarly inquiry, the individual behind these initials has never been conclusive...