print;
broadside
- Museum number
- 1865,0708.47
- Title
- Object: Die Badmeydt spricht
- Description
-
Broadside of a Nuremberg bath attendant; with a hand-coloured woodcut of a lightly dressed female holding two pails of water, and with letterpress verses in German. (Nuremberg, Drechsel: [c.1585])
- Production date
- 1585
- Dimensions
-
Height: 363 millimetres (image)
-
Height: 385 millimetres (sheet)
-
Width: 178 millimetres (image)
-
Width: 273 millimetres (sheet)
- Curator's comments
- The graceful public bath-house attendant explains in her verses that her special task is to wash children. Such figures would be familiar to all the lesser townsfolk who used the baths, but the broadside (for which they were the intended audience) is a rare and unashamed popular pin-up. Bath-houses were sometimes held to be places of licence, and ambiguity may be intended in the attendant's reference to her respect for her customers, "including young lads".
Wolf Drechsel was qualified as a maker of woodcuts (Formschneider) and illuminator (Briefmaler), and had his own small printing-press. The woodcut has been coloured using stencils (a labour-saving device when large numbers of sheets had to be coloured), as can be seen in the two flesh-colours. (David Paisey)
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Text and Image: German Illustrated Broadsides from Four Centuries, BM exh., 2002
- Acquisition date
- 1865
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1865,0708.47
