Art Institute of Chicago

Ornament with the Tree of Jesse

Israhel van Meckenem the Younger

Date

1480–90

Medium

Engraving on paper

Culture

Germany

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Israhel van Meckenem produced many densely engraved ornament prints in which tendrils overflow with wild men and women roaming the forests. The present engraving, however, depicts a sacred subject—the symbolic Tree of Jesse (the father of King David). Jesse sleeps on the central mound, but a dreamlike vision of his progeny extends upward beyond David to Christ and his mother. This visual genealogy was used to prove Christ’s royal lineage and was also one of the earliest interpretations of a “family tree.”

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