Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

One of the earliest and rarest of Martin Schongauer’s engravings, this image reflects the type of monsters/demons that appeared as architectural gargoyles or as grotesques in the margins of illuminated manuscripts during the late Middle Ages. Schongauer employs them as the tormenters of a third-century hermit-saint, who is suspended in midair. Although based on a story from the Golden Legend, the print refrains from narrative detail, instead creating a swirl of central action against a simple sky of parallel hatch marks with the hint of landscape in the lower-right corner. The focus is on the hybrid creatures constructed with remarkable naturalism from various animal parts. This image proved incredibly influential on later artists from Albrecht Dürer to Michelangelo.