The King's Sons Shooting Their Father's Corpse
ca. 1500
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
sheet: 7 x 9 3/4 in. (17.8 x 24.8 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Charles Z. Offin Fund; The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund; and A. Hyatt Mayor Purchase Fund, Marjorie Phelps Starr Bequest, 2003
Accession Number
2003.225
Tags
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 am...
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...