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Hybrid Creature, from Neuw Grottessken Buch

Artist/Maker (German, 1563–1618)
Date1610
MediumEngraving
DimensionsImage/Sheet: 5 5/16 × 6 7/8 in. (13.5 × 17.5 cm)
Credit LineOberlin-Carnegie Corporation Fund
PortfolioNeuen Grottesken Buch
Object number1931.56
Status
Not on view
More Information
This engraving is bold, ripping us away from what we think we know to construct a new context entirely. The trumpeting feathered dog-like, serpent creature obeys no conventional rules of aesthetics or beauty as it proudly marches forth sporting scaly armor. The creature embodies elements of the grotesque, an art form intended to rupture expectations and norms to provoke reimagining.

Christopher Columbus’s violent encounters in the Americas marked a turning point in European thought surrounding what an individual’s place in the world might be. In the preface to the book of ornamental designs that this print comes from, the German goldsmith-engraver Jamnitzer situated his creations in the context of Columbus’s expeditions. Blurring the lines between discovery and invention, the artist claimed to have invented and discovered these grotesques in a similar way.

This hybrid creature looms across a complex landscape representing both the temperate climate of the Old World and the tropical climate of the New World, blowing into a bony trumpet to announce its fateful arrival. Nothing would ever be the same.
ProvenanceAlfred Morrison (1821-1897), London and Fonthill (L. 151) [according to stamp on verso]. (Unrecorded dealer); purchased 1931 by Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OHExhibition History
The Century of Shakespeare
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (April 10, 1964 - April 30, 1964 )
Print Council Exhibition: Selections from the Prints and Drawings Collection at the Allen Memorial Art Museum
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (May 5, 1988 - June 5, 1988 )
Between Fact and Fantasy: The Artistic Imagination in Print
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (January 17, 2014 - June 22, 2014 )
What's in a Spell? Love Magic, Healing, and Punishment in the Early Modern Hispanic World
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (August 19, 2023 - December 12, 2023 )
Collections
  • European