The Men's Bath

Albrecht Dürer’s Men’s Bath has been interpreted in many ways—from a humanist ode to Italian nudes to a group of portraits including three potential views of Dürer and one of his best friend, the rotund Willibald Pirckheimer. The waterline is only ankle-deep for the standing figures, while the seated pair in the foreground is more submerged; a Dürer look-alike controls the strategically placed pump. This large-scale woodcut was published shortly after a 1496 edict closed the bathhouses in Dürer’s hometown of Nuremberg, around the time of both an outbreak of syphilis and a drought. It may therefore be a protest against the edict, or perhaps a nostalgic look at idyllic bathing activities of days past.