GRASSER, Erasmus
(b. ca. 1450, Schmidmühlen, d. ca. 1518, München)

Morris Dancer (Bridegroom)

1480
Limewood with modern polychrome, height 61,5 cm
Stadtmuseum, Munich

In many German town halls in the 15 century, the great hall or a separate feast room was the site of the important social rituals. The ranks of civic leadership and its attendant privileges, such as the right to dance in the town hall, were often restricted to patricians and wealthy merchants. On completion of its new Rathaus in about 1477, the Munich council converted the largest chamber of their adjoining old building into a feast room. They commissioned Erasmus Grasser to carve sixteen statues of morris dancers, which were spaced around the room at the base of the wooden vault. Each figure exhibits a wildly contorted pose. One, dubbed Bridegroom, stands on one leg while twirling dexterously.

Morris dances, performed at carnivals or as interludes in more formal dances in the fifteenth century, were acrobatic as the men would leap around in comical and often erotic fashion to the sound of drum and flute music.