The Bathhouse

The Bathhouse is one of the earliest 'whole sheet' woodcuts executed by Dürer upon his return to Nuremburg from Venice. Unlike the majority of his early independent woodcuts (i.e. excluding book illustrations and broadsheets), which depict Christian subjects, the content of this print is secular and reveals a growing public interest in non-religious art. Panofsky, while admitting the possibility that the print contains references to the doctrines of the four humours, feels that it does not admit of detailed allegorical interpretation. Other commentators have regarded the individual bathers as portraits: the 'melancholic' at the pump has long been considered a self-portrait of the artist; the two foreground figures have been identified with the brothers Stephan and Lucas Paumgärtner, members of a prominent Nuremberg family; while the 'phlegmatic' drinker maybe a caricature of Willibald Pirckheimer.

In any case, it seems clear that each of the five bathers is associated with one of the Five Senses, sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch - and that Dürer allowed himself a rather saucy visual pun with the water faucet. Perhaps it was due to the personal and overtly erotic nature of this woodcut that is was printed in small numbers only, and lifetime impressions are extremely rare.