02 December 2009

"Old Man Fondling the Exposed Breast of a Young Woman Who is Taking Coins From His Purse"


A woodcut "formerly attributed to Sebald Beham, after Jacob Lucius, Germany, 1545-1600."

The older brother of Barthel Beham by two years, he was born into a family of artists in Nuremberg. In 1525, along with his brother and Georg Pencz, the so-called "godless painters", he was banished from Nuremberg, accused of heresy (against Lutheranism)...

Beham is best known as a prolific printmaker, producing approximately 252 engravings, 18 etchings and 1500 woodcuts, including woodcut book illustrations. He worked extensively on tiny, highly detailed, engravings, many as small as postage stamps, placing him in the German printmaking school known as the "Little Masters" from the size of their prints... The engravings found a ready market among German bourgeois collectors, but were not much seen in Italy. He also made prints for use as playing cards, wallpaper, coats of arms, and designs for other artists, including many designs for stained or painted glass...

Text from Wikipedia. Image and caption from the Flickr photostream of kintzertorium, where there are many other interesting woodcuts. Blogged not for the naughtiness, but for the concept presented in the woodcut, which should be applicable to aspects of modern life.

The woodcut enlarges with a click.

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