A Tournament
Lucas Cranach (German, 1472–1553)
1506
- Medium
- woodcut
- Classification
- Culture
- Germany
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Prints
- Credit line
- Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Tournaments in the age of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian were not the serious affairs of the Middle Ages, nor did they reflect actual methods of warfare, which relied on heavy cannons and mercenaries. Instead, they provided amusing entertainment for the aristocracy. This complex design, containing numerous combatants jousting with lances, was based on events that took place in the Wittenberg marketplace. Given Cranach's position as painter to the Saxon court, his workshop would probably have been responsible for the various painted decorations associated with such tournaments.
