University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Faculty Publications and Creative Activity, School of Art, Art History and Design Art, Art History and Design, School of 1978 Unequal Lovers: A Study of Unequal Couples in Northern Art Alison G. Stewart University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/artfacpub Part of the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Stewart, Alison G., "Unequal Lovers: A Study of Unequal Couples in Northern Art" (1978). Faculty Publications and Creative Activity, School of Art, Art History and Design. 19. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/artfacpub/19 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Art, Art History and Design, School of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications and Creative Activity, School of Art, Art History and Design by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Unequal Lovers Unequal Lovers A Study of Unequal Couples in Northern Art A1ison G. Stewart ABARIS BOOKS- NEW YORK Copyright 1977 by Walter L. Strauss International Standard Book Number 0-913870-44-7 Library of Congress Card Number 77-086221 First published 1978 by Abaris Books, Inc. 24 West 40th Street, New York, New York 10018 Printed in the United States of America This book is sold subject to the condition that no portion shall be reproduced in any form or by any means, and that it shall not, by way of trade, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise disposed of without the publisher's consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published. TO MY PARENTS CONTENTS Acknowledgements 9 Chapter 1 A Universal Theme 11 Chapter 2 Literary Sources from Plautus to Shakespeare 13 Chapter 3 Artistic Predecessors 35 Chapter 4 Symbolic and Iconographic Elements 47 Chapter 5 Conclusion and Interpretation 101 Notes 125 Handlist 137 Bibliography 183 Index 195 ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA 17 line 19: change "they to "thy" 28 line 5: read "Fool's Caps"; line 30: delete the comma after "or" 40 The source of the illustration is: Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, preussischer Kulturbesitz 54 line 20: change "next" to "nest"; line 30: change "1549" to "1529"; line 31: after (fig. 28) add footnote "139"; line 35: after "unsatisfied" add footnote "140". Change the date of the caption for illustration 28 to "1529" 59 line 31: after "pelf' insert "he blames both partners" 65 line 16: read "skillfully" 69 line 14: read "in the first place they [women] " 75 line 21: read "I will also release you from this lock" line 23: read "Locks don't help against a woman's lust" 91 line 2: read "Staatliche Museen preussischer Kulturbesitz" 114 caption, line 2: add (?) after "Woman's" 123 caption: add "the woodcut has been attributed to Erhard Schoen, c. 1533" 130 footnote 139 becomes 140; footnote 140 becomes 139 136 add footnotes 283 thru 287: 283: Von der Osten and Vey 1969, p. 215. 284: For the woman in profile and the five grotesque men, both in Windsor (12447 Rand 12495 R), see Clark and Pedretti 1968, vol. 2, figs. 12447r and 12495r; vol. I, p. 73, dates the drawing of the woman in profile to ca. 1491 and Pedretti 1957, p. 33, to ca. 1492. The Five Grotesques are placed around the same time-ca. 1490 by Popham (1945, p. 42) and ca. 1494 by Clark and Pedretti (1968, vol. 1, p. 85). For interpretation and a copy after the Five Grotesques, see Gombrich 1976, p. 71 (and fig. 183), and Bialostocki 1959, pI. 4. 285: Larsen 1950, p. 174, and Kronig 1950, pp. 174, and 1Of., n. 24. 286: Major and Gradmann [1942], p. 21, no. 38, and fig. 38. 287: Opinions expressed were by Wolfgang Eckhardt in Hamburg and Johann Michael Fri.tz, Karlsruhe, based on photocopies of the medallion. Their cooperation is greatly appreciated. I would like to thank Mark Zucker for bringing this example to my attention. 144 line 4: delete "N" 169 line 6: read "Quin len" 177 line 3: (The Crayfish Master) 181 text line 9 and footnote 287 187 line 1: Altniederlandische Schaubiihne; line 23: read Mcckenem; line 25: read Halite 189 line 15: italienische 191 line 19: Einfliisse 192 line 35: Schembart; line 47: delete st 193 line 36: d.A.". 202 right, line 23: Dream althe Idler 205 left, line 5: Melencolia I 207 right, line 12: Schwankerzahlungen (Stewart, Unequal Lovers) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My study of Unequal Lovers began at Queens College of the City University of New York as a master's thesis, completed in September 1976. It was partially supported by a graduate assistantship from the college. The present work revises, updates, and adds to the thesis, especially in the literary and concluding chapters. Revision for publication took place primarily in the fall of 1977 while 1 was completing course work at Columbia University, during which time my studies were supported by a University fellowship. A grant from the Photographic Collection of Columbia University supported the acquisition of photographs for this book. "I would like to thank the many friends and colleagues who have given their advice and shown interest in this project, among them: Mark J. Zucker, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, for suggesting the topic and for his helpful discussions during the initial stage of this study; Leonard J. Slatkes, my thesis advisor, above all for his untiring willingness to talk over ideas and for suggesting that 1 take advantage of European collections, which formed an integral part of this work; Keith P.F. Moxey, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, especially for generously providing many examples of Unequal Lovers in Netherlandish literature, cited individually below; and Christiane Andersson, my advisor at Columbia University, for her expertise in German graphics and her many helpful suggestions, in particular her extensive revisions of the thesis text. Special thanks to Walter Strauss for his enthusiastic support of the project, for accepting an essentially unfinished manuscript and tirelessly revising it, and above all for making possible its publication. Laurie Sucher's sympathetic and expert editorial function turned many a less than poetic phrase into what you see before you. Finally to my parents for their unfailing faith, support and interest, and to Laura, who never ceases to amaze me with her understanding and friendship. 9 Jakob Hoefnagel (d. 1630), Old Woman with Young Man (after Leonardo da Vinci) 10 Chapter 1 A Universal Theme David Hume once wrote that humanity is "so much the same in all times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature." I Love between the old and the young is a theme that has interested artists and audiences since antiquity, when Plautus (d. 184 B.C.), working after Greek originals, set down in writing the first representations of this theme that have come down to us. That it is a "constant and universal principle of human nature" is suggested not only by its inclusion in the folk literature of Europe and Asia, 2 but also by the existence of artifacts like a pre-Columbian whistle which dates between 600 and 900 A.D.3 The theme was highly popular in the literature of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and numerous representations of it appear in the visual arts from the Renaissance to the Baroque. Unequal Lovers became popular in another guise during the late seventeenth century in Restoration plays such as those by William Wycherley and William Congreve. 4 Nor is the twentieth century excluded from this historical continuum. Jokes and cartoons center on the theme. Picasso's Courtship, a drawing of 1905-6 (New York, Guggenheim Museum), and movies like Harold and Maude (which dealt with the relationship of an old Wflman and a young man, based on love, not money) take it up as well. The old woman-young man combination still makes news: FORTALEZA, Brazil (AP) , December 10, 1975. Cosmo Vidal de Silva, 22, and Rozena Barroso Lima, 71, were married yesterday in this northern port city. The bride has nine children, 47 grandchildren and six great-gr~ndchildren. Her youngest child is 32 and her oldest grandchild is 35. 5 11 Unequal Couples are sometimes designated as Ill-Matched or Ill-Assorted Couples, though the term Unequal Couples is used in this study. On the other hand, the term Unequal Lovers encompasses all representations of the theme, and includes both Unequal Couples and Love Triangles. The scope of this work is primarily the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, a period in which conditions were such that the Unequal Lovers theme attained a new popularity and was first depicted as an independent representation in the visual arts. This popularity was most pronounced in northern Europe, especially Germany, and it is this greatest period of German efflorescence (ca. 1470-1535) that delineates the time span covered here. The invention of engraving and the other graphic arts; the growth of the middle class, for whom money took on a new accessibility; the invention of the printing press, which of course revolutionized communications and the spread of ideas; the increasing interest in secular and satirical subjects: each of these related factors accounts partially for the particular appeal of this theme to the audience of the time. It is therefore a fruitful period for the study of the Unequal Lovers theme, and we shall limit ourselves, at least in the visual arts, to it. Few authors have addressed the theme.