The King's Sons Shooting at their Dead Father's Body (1495–1504): Art, History and Details

The King's Sons Shooting at their Dead Father's Body (1495–1504) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Mair von Landshut (German, active about 1484–1520).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This gruesome story shows a contest among the sons of a deceased king to settle the estate: Two shoot their father’s corpse as a third refuses. Although the meaning of the subject matter is not entirely clear, the third son may symbolize true faith, while the others represent nonbelievers. German artist Mair von Landshut was among the first generation of engravers to come from a background in drawing and painting rather than metalwork. This print is meant to resemble a drawing. Mair prepared a white sheet of paper with olive-gray diluted ink, then printed from an engraved plate in black ink.

Object facts

• Title: The King's Sons Shooting at their Dead Father's Body
• Date: 1495–1504
• Creator attribution: Mair von Landshut (German, active about 1484–1520)
• Culture: Germany, late 15th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving on olive-gray tinted paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 16.1 x 25.2 cm (6 5/16 x 9 15/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1950.344

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Richards, Louise. "An Engraving by Mair Von Landshut." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 43, no. 6 (June 1956): 120-123.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.