Double Portrait of Israhel van Meckenem and His Wife Ida c. 1490

Israhel van Meckenem made this engraving of himself and his wife Ida sometime before his death in 1503. The image gives us insights into the society of late fifteenth-century Germany.   The couple are dressed in the fashion of the time. They wear elaborate head coverings, which indicate a certain level of wealth and status, and are depicted against a patterned background. The work can be situated in the broader development of printmaking during the period, when the new medium allowed for wider distribution of images and ideas. Here, the artist's choice of portraying himself and his wife suggests a growing sense of self-awareness and perhaps even an appeal to the burgeoning market for secular art. To fully understand this portrait, we can look to period documents, costume histories, and economic studies of the print market in Northern Europe. In doing so, we may better appreciate how art reflects and shapes the social world.