Art Institute of Chicago

Dancing Couple, plate three from The Large Wedding-Dancers

Heinrich Aldegrever

Date: 1538
Medium: Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
Culture: Germany
Department: Prints and Drawings
Institution: Art Institute of Chicago

The figures in Aldegrever’s lively series of couples and musicians at a wedding show off daggers and swords as gentlemen’s fashion accessories rather than as weapons. As the couples pivot, pace, and embrace, blades peek out at different angles, whether impeding intimacy or visually alluding to increasing amorousness. Moving from left to right in triumphal procession, dancers sway to the tune of trombonists in their wake.

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