Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index

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Click to view high resolution image Title: Peasant Family Going to Market Creator: Schongauer, Martin, artist Description: Peasant Family Going to Market depicts an impoverished family trudging through a rural landscape on their way to an unknown location. A disheveled man with a sword sticking out of its sheath leads a horse with two people on its back. The woman carries a dry twig which reveals her poverty and foolishness. The identities of the people in this print are ambiguous. They could be either peasants or beggars. However, the specifics of their identity may not have been a serious concern for Schongauer because there was already an association between the two groups in the minds of the urban contemporaries for whom this image was produced. The print has a rural setting but the family is moving on instead of working the land, which suggests that their travels are more significant than an average trip to the market. In the sixteenth-century, movement symbolized a person’s separation from their origins. Thus, this print can be understood as an image of social displacement and vagrancy. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art Rights: Open access Subject (See Also): Beggars Peasantry Rural Conditions Geographic Area: Germany Century: 15 Date: 1470- 1475 Related Work: Current Location: New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Felix M. Warburg and his family, 41.1.8 Original Location: Frankfurt Artistic Type (Category): Digital Images; Prints Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Engravings Donor: Height/Width/Length(cm): 16.2 cm/16 cm/ Inscription: Related Resources: Nichols, Tom. The Art of Poverty: Irony and Ideal in Sixteenth-century Beggar Imagery. Manchester: Univesity of Manchester Press. 2007. Pg. 52-54

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