The Organ Player and His Wife (1495–1500): Art, History and Details

The Organ Player and His Wife (1495–1500) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Israhel van Meckenem (German, c. 1440–1503).

The work and its context

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

In a cozy, domestic setting, an organ player plays a portative with four registers. His wife operates the two bellows, producing the wind that gives the instrument its sound. The activity of one would be inconceivable and pointless without the other. The music they create together--as well as the faithful dog placed prominently in the foreground--refers to marital harmony.

Object facts

• Title: The Organ Player and His Wife
• Date: 1495–1500
• Creator attribution: Israhel van Meckenem (German, c. 1440–1503)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Image: 16.6 x 11 cm (6 9/16 x 4 5/16 in.); Sheet: 16.6 x 11 cm (6 9/16 x 4 5/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1960.73

Collection credit

Delia E. Holden Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• “Annual Report for 1960.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 48, no. 6 (June 1961): 107–147.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.

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.