Cleveland Museum of Art

Mercenaries and a Woman with Death in a Tree

Urs Graf the Elder

Date

1524

Medium

woodcut

Culture

Switzerland

Department

Prints

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Two Swiss mercenaries and a woman meet outside a city at a prominent tree. The woman’s immodest dress, glance, and proximity to a money bag imply that she is sexually available, as does the soldier’s suggestively placed sword. Death makes an appearance as a skeleton, conjoining sin with death (for it was believed that overindulgence in carnal love led to peril). The Swiss Confederacy during the 1500s was a culture of mercenary warfare. Women traveled with regiments of soldiers, earning meager wages as servants, cooks, or sex workers. Urs Graf, a soldier himself, made many images ridiculing the situation. Urs Graf was a Swiss professional soldier, or mercenary, who made many images of soldiers and camp followers, such as the woman featured here.

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