SOUTH GERMAN SCHOOL, CIRCA 1800 | The foolish right of the nose-grinders
Lot Closed
April 8, 02:34 PM GMT
Estimate
2,000 - 3,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
SOUTH GERMAN SCHOOL, CIRCA 1800
THE FOOLISH RIGHT OF THE NOSE-GRINDERS
oil on canvas
unframed: 41.4 x 58.2 cm.; 16⅜ x 22⅝ in.
framed: 46 x 63.1 cm.; 18 x 24⅞ in.
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Obersteg Foundation, Switzerland.
This quaint German tradition is still practised annually on Fat Thursday (Schmotzigè Dunschtig in Allemannic) in Swabian and Bavarian towns - records of its existence since at least 1650s have been found in the Fürstenberg princely archives, as a right granted to the court jesters of the Princes von Fürstenberg-Messkirch, rulers of Menningen. Figures in masks submit members of the audience to a joke 'trial', where the punishment is inevitably the 'nose grinding' (blackening).