id: 127350 accession number: 1949.95 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1949.95 updated: 2022-02-18 10:00:47.973000 The Cook and His Wife, probably 1497. Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471-1528). Engraving; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Mrs. Madeleine Hamill in memory of Lawrence Hamill 1949.95 title: The Cook and His Wife title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: probably 1497 creation date earliest: 1497 creation date latest: 1497 current location: creditline: Bequest of Mrs. Madeleine Hamill in memory of Lawrence Hamill copyright: --- culture: Germany, late 15th-early 16th Century technique: engraving department: Prints collection: PR - Engraving type: Print find spot: catalogue raisonne: Meder 85 --- CREATORS * Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471-1528) - artist --- measurements: state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Dürer’s Women: Images of Devotion and Desire opening date: 2014-06-22T00:00:00 Dürer’s Women: Images of Devotion and Desire. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (June 22-September 28, 2014). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: Dürer’s curious engraving relates a comical story about the exposure of womanly deception. This housewife, identified by her clothing and the key and purse at her hip, had eaten an eel that her husband was saving. Although she denied it, her pet magpie, a bird associated with idle chatter, witnessed her deviousness and tattled. In revenge, she plucked the bird’s head bare and each time the magpie saw a bald man, the bird asked whether the man had also been telling the story of the eel. Even without knowing the narrative, the wife’s calculating glance toward the viewer and her husband’s dimwitted gluttonous appearance communicates the woman’s sense of superiority, but also her cunning. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1949.95/1949.95_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1949.95/1949.95_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1949.95/1949.95_full.tif