The Beggars (Eulenspiegel)

Lucas van Leyden

1520 · Etching and engraving · Drawings and Prints

This image of a traveling family, their baskets loaded with small children, is based on a popular satirical book entitled Ship of Fools, by Sebastian Brandt (1494). The couple are beggars who pretend to be pilgrims and borrow children to look more needy. The father wears the signs of a pilgrim, a pilgrim’s hat sporting with a cockle shell and an awl. The owl on the shoulder of the small boy symbolizes sin and idleness, while the bagpipes signals folly. Here, Lucas etched the entire image and then went retracing over the figural group with large amounts of engraving. The engraved lines bind and set the group apart from the background, adding further dimension.

Artist

Lucas van Leyden

Date

1520

Medium

Etching and engraving

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1917