The Madonna by the Fountain
1501
Medium
Engraving on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Sheet trimmed within platemark: 17.9 × 14.6 cm (7 1/16 × 5 3/4 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
3692
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The artist known as Master M. Z. produced a number of idiosyncratic devotional and secular engraved subjects in Northern Germany around the beginning of the 16th century. This massively sculptural Madonna fills a dainty cup for the Christ Child from a fountain spout with the features of a lion or possibly a monkey. The composition closely recalls Albrecht Dürer’s well-known Madonna with the Monkey. While Dürer’s Christ Child has been distracted by a bird, here the large, naked Christ tugs at the...
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...