Master of Ceremonies with a Dog, plate one from the Large Wedding-Dancers

Description

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.

Master of Ceremonies with a Dog, plate one from the Large Wedding-Dancers

Heinrich Aldegrever

1538

Accession Number

77379

Medium

Engraving in black on ivory laid paper

Dimensions

11.6 × 7.7 cm (4 5/8 × 3 1/16 in.)

Classification

engraving

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Potter Palmer, Jr.