Art Institute of Chicago

The Madonna by the Fountain

Master M.Z.

Date

1501

Medium

Engraving on ivory laid paper

Culture

Germany

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

The artist known as Master M. Z. produced a number of idiosyncratic devotional and secular engraved subjects in Northern Germany around the beginning of the 16th century. This massively sculptural Madonna fills a dainty cup for the Christ Child from a fountain spout with the features of a lion or possibly a monkey. The composition closely recalls Albrecht Dürer’s well-known Madonna with the Monkey . While Dürer’s Christ Child has been distracted by a bird, here the large, naked Christ tugs at the tunic of the tender, if slightly amused Virgin, as if to suggest breast milk would be preferable to water.

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