The Madonna by the Fountain

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

The artist known as Master M. Z. produced a number of idiosyncratic devotional and secular engraved subjects in Northern Germany around the beginning of the 16th century. This massively sculptural Madonna fills a dainty cup for the Christ Child from a fountain spout with the features of a lion or possibly a monkey. The composition closely recalls Albrecht Dürer’s well-known Madonna with the Monkey . While Dürer’s Christ Child has been distracted by a bird, here the large, naked Christ tugs at the tunic of the tender, if slightly amused Virgin, as if to suggest breast milk would be preferable to water.

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