A Lady with Three Suitors
c. 1500
Maker Unknown
Drawings
A Lady with Three Suitors, c. 1500. France, 16th century. Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, with traces of black chalk; sheet: 23 x 19.3 cm (9 1/16 x 7 5/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 1956.40 This mysterious drawing shows an encounter between elegantly dressed members of the noble class. The French inscription above the image suggests that the woman is addressing her suitors and makes it clear that they are concerned with the pursuit of love: He who will conquer my love / This [barrier] must overcome / Neither destroying it nor loosening it / Going neither below it nor above. The style of the clothing reflects French court fashions during the reign of Charles VIII (1483–98), and the subject relates to the tradition of late medieval collections of love riddles that involved verbal exchanges between courtly ladies and gentlemen. The simple background of this drawing and its lack of landscape detail suggest that the image may have been a model for a tapestry or other textile.
- Maker/Artist
- Maker Unknown
- Classification
- Drawing
- Formatted Medium
- pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, with traces of black chalk
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 23 x 19.3 cm (9 1/16 x 7 5/8 in.)
- Inscribed
- Inscription: upper center, in brown ink: Celuy mamour conquestera / qui deca ce laß passera / Sanß lempirer ne desnouer / sanß dessuß ne dessoubz passez
- Departments
- Drawings
- Accession Number
- 1956.40
- Credit Line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Exhibitions
- Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition, Drawings from the Museum Collection: 15th-17th Centuries, Drawings, Prints and Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art Collection, Treasures of Medieval France, The Waning Middle Ages, Images of Love and Death in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art, Northern European Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art, Treasures on Paper, French Drawings from the Collection, Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art
- Rights Statement
- CC0
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