SCHONGAUER, Martin
(b. ca. 1430, Colmar, d. 1491, Breisach)

Apprentices Fighting

c. 1485
Engraving, 57 x 73 mm
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco

It is with Schongauer's generation that purely secular genre, once restricted to the marginal areas of art, began to receive treatment on its own. Most of these are of modest format, and the subjects reflect the motifs of earlier drolleries: scenes of peasants working, playing, fighting, or animals cavorting and prancing. A good example is his tiny print of Apprentices Fighting with two young boys wrestling and pulling hair.