The Stag Hunt
Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, 1472-1553)
c. 1506
- Medium
- Woodcut in black from two blocks on two sheets of cream laid paper, joined
- Classification
- Dimensions
- Image/block: 37 × 51 cm (14 5/8 × 20 1/8 in.)
- Culture
- Germany
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Clarence Buckingham Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
As the court artist of Elector Frederick of Saxony, Lucas Cranach the Elder had the privilege of depicting the courtly entertainment of the stag hunt. Cranach was renowned for his depictions of hunting trophies in illusionistic trompe l’oeil murals; his contemporaries even claimed that his animal imagery was so lifelike that birds tried to land on the painted stags’ antlers. The grand scale of this two-part woodcut allowed Cranach to include copious details of the deer and dogs; the visible seam in the center demonstrates that the printing shop was not necessarily interested in matching the sides perfectly.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
