Mars Bound by Cupid

This idiosyncratic artist gets his name from the one engraving he dated. Despite his anonymity, the Master of the Year 1515 had a deep well of personality. Eschewing the accepted religious and moralizing themes of the day, he concentrated on wit and whimsy. In Mars Bound by Cupid, a mock-serious Cupid incapacitates the god of war, who is seated ignominiously on a heap of his own armor. The master is known for using drypoint more often than any other sixteenth-century artist, a technique that accounts for the soft, lush ink pooling in the shadows in this remarkably fresh print.