25. Hans Sebald Beham
(1500-1550)

The Little Buffoon

(click on image to print)
Beham, The Little Buffoon

The Little Buffoon

Engraving, 45 x 80 mm., Bartsch 230, Pauli 234. Very fine impression on laid paper, trimmed on the platemark, which is visible in places; a tiny restoration at the top center. This not very polite print (vulgar, even) carries the legend "On Dir Hob Ich Gerisen Das Ich Mich Hab Beschisen." Stephen Goddard (The World in Miniature, Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, 1988) has suggested the multiple meanings punned here: "I have written on you (the banderole) that I have beshit myself"; "I have torn you"; and "I am saying smutty things."