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Lot Essay
There is a disquieting, almost uncanny quality to the woodcuts of Hans Baldung, a sense of inner tension and outer turmoil, which is no less present in his series of three woodcuts of horses than in his prints of human subjects. The subject does not appear to correspond to any existing visual or literary sources and the meaning of the series remains enigmatic. It seems probable that the three images, of which the present woodcut is considered the third, should be read as a progressive series of a mating ritual between wild horses, with an attempted tryst gone awry and leading to a rejection by the mare, culminating in a fight between the stallions for dominance.
The gathering of wild horses seems to take place in a forest clearing at night. The first scene depicts an aroused horse with an erect phallus in the left foreground, baying in an apparent mating call. Below the horse’s genitals we see a monkey squatting on the ground, presumably a symbol of lust. As a secret observer, a man appears half-hidden behind a tree in the background. In the second image, the horse’s natural urges are unfulfilled as he is rejected by the mare, causing him to ejaculate onto the earth below. The present final woodcut shows a savage fight between four horses, with one biting the nape of the horse in the foreground. The wild and ferocious expressions of the horses are emulated in their twisting postures as they trample the three defeated horses on the ground.
In the 16th century discourse on emblems, the unsaddled horse was associated with libido. In this context, the depiction of the sexual urges of wild horses could be interpreted as an allegory of human desire and lust, brought about by the Fall of Man.
Baldung seems to have printed his woodcuts in very small numbers, as early impressions are extremely rare and almost never come to the market. The present Group of Seven Horses is undoubted an early impression, printing very strongly, clearly and evenly. This assessment is confirmed by the watermark: Briquet records a nearly identical watermark (Br. 1815), first documented in Strasbourg in 1521, and another, very similar mark (Br. 1816), occuring in Aschaffenburg in 1529, just pre-dating this woodcut by a few years.
The gathering of wild horses seems to take place in a forest clearing at night. The first scene depicts an aroused horse with an erect phallus in the left foreground, baying in an apparent mating call. Below the horse’s genitals we see a monkey squatting on the ground, presumably a symbol of lust. As a secret observer, a man appears half-hidden behind a tree in the background. In the second image, the horse’s natural urges are unfulfilled as he is rejected by the mare, causing him to ejaculate onto the earth below. The present final woodcut shows a savage fight between four horses, with one biting the nape of the horse in the foreground. The wild and ferocious expressions of the horses are emulated in their twisting postures as they trample the three defeated horses on the ground.
In the 16th century discourse on emblems, the unsaddled horse was associated with libido. In this context, the depiction of the sexual urges of wild horses could be interpreted as an allegory of human desire and lust, brought about by the Fall of Man.
Baldung seems to have printed his woodcuts in very small numbers, as early impressions are extremely rare and almost never come to the market. The present Group of Seven Horses is undoubted an early impression, printing very strongly, clearly and evenly. This assessment is confirmed by the watermark: Briquet records a nearly identical watermark (Br. 1815), first documented in Strasbourg in 1521, and another, very similar mark (Br. 1816), occuring in Aschaffenburg in 1529, just pre-dating this woodcut by a few years.