Master of Ceremonies with a Dog, plate one from the Large Wedding-Dancers
Medium
Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
11.6 × 7.7 cm (4 5/8 × 3 1/16 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
77379
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The figures in Aldegrever’s lively series of couples and musicians at a wedding show off daggers and swords as gentlemen’s fashion accessories rather than as weapons. As the couples pivot, pace, and embrace, blades peek out at different angles, whether impeding intimacy or visually alluding to increasing amorousness. Moving from left to right in triumphal procession, dancers sway to the tune of trombonists in their wake.
About the Artist
Heinrich Aldegrever · 1502–1561
Heinrich Aldegrever, born in 1502 in Paderborn, Westphalia, to parents Herman and Katherine Trippenmeker—a family of clog-makers known by the dialect name Trippenmecker—emerged as a multifaceted artist in the German Renaissance. His early training remains undocumented, though he likely apprenticed in a Soest goldsmith's workshop after relocating there around 1525, where he joined the painters' gui...