Art Institute of Chicago

The Children's Bath

Israhel van Meckenem the Younger

Date

1480/90

Medium

Engraving in black on cream laid paper

Culture

Germany

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Albrecht Dürer and Sebald Beham likely knew Israhel van Meckenem’s earlier genre scene of seven children bathing, misbehaving, and playing around a large wooden tub, supervised by a bathmaid. Those artists’ related prints (Dürer's The Men’s Bath , 2009.133 and Beham's The Women’s Bath , 2010.518) take place in outdoor male and indoor female baths, respectively. All three celebrate different aspects of bathing culture, a relatively infrequent activity during the Renaissance. Though it has not been annotated in this impression, the empty, winding banner above Meckenem’s Children’s Bath offers the viewer a space to interact with the image as playfully as the splashing and roughhousing boys themselves.

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