Albrecht Drer

The Cook and his Wife

細節
Albrecht Drer
The Cook and his Wife
engraving, 1496, a very good Meder c impression, with part of a Bull's Head watermark (cf. M. 62), trimmed just within the platemark, retaining the borderline almost all round, tiny defects at the top edge near the left corner, otherwise generally in very good condition
S. 109 x 78mm.
出版
Bartsch 84; Meder, Hollstein 85

拍品專文

This print illustrates a tale in Ritter von Thurn, Basel, 1493, for which Drer had designed woodcuts, though this subject had not been included. It tells of a cook's wife who had eaten an eel meant for unexpected guests. She made excuses and told her husband that it had been taken by an otter. The man was told the truth by his wife's talking magpie, and in revenge she plucked all the feathers off the bird's head. Thereafter, whenever the magpie saw a bald-headed man, it would exclaim 'So, you have been telling about the eel!'