Art Institute of Chicago

The Michelfeldt Tapestry (Allegory on Social Injustice), first part of three

Attributed to Albrecht Dürer

Date

1526

Medium

Woodcut in black on cream laid paper

Culture

Germany

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Even comparatively clean prints preserved in long-forgotten albums usually bear traces of folding, inscribing, pasting, stamping, or trimming, though such clues may stay hidden on their blank versos. In particular, the backs of Renaissance impressions often hide ownership marks, such as the coat of arms at the lower edge of this work, which identifies it as the property of the nineteenth-century Austrian collector Franz Ritter von Hauslab. This deeply printed woodcut sheet comes from a three-part frieze reproducing a supposedly prophetic, anti-papal tapestry; adhesive stains suggest it might once have been attached to its companion sheets.

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