Wild Man Chandelier (Lustermännchen)

Place of OriginAlpine Region, Germany

Dateabout 1525-1550

Dimensions23 1/2 × 17 1/4 in. (59.7 × 43.8 cm)
Length with stag antlers: 35 in. (89 cm)

MediumPolychromed wood and stag antler

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LinePurchased with funds given by Andrew and Cindy Kalnow and with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

2021.39

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 19

DescriptionHanging from iron chains, a wild man half-figure holds with both hands at his waist a coat of arms of a red-on-white cross. Long, dark brown flowing hair and beard encircle the figure’s face, flushed red on his lips, cheeks, and nose. Except for his head and hands, the wild man’s body has been carved to resemble shaggy hair and painted—probably in the 19th century—a pale green. Both stag antlers attach to the figure’s back above a belt of intertwining branches in addition to being bolted to the figure’s upper back as well. The back of the shield appears to be covered with a leather or textile-like material and has been painted a reddish-brown color. The antlers have also been painted a brick-red color, but much has worn away, particularly at the tips of the points. The proper-left antler has six points, while the proper-right antler has seven. The wild man and antlers are attached to an iron chain at three points: one iron eye screw is located at the back of the head, and there is one each midway along the length of the antlers.

Label TextCarved in the form of a wild man, this Lüstermännchen (literally, little chandelier man) would have originally had metal fixtures inserted into the antlers extending from the figure’s back. Popular in Germany and surrounding alpine regions, antler chandeliers hung inside civic spaces such as town and guild halls, in castles and stately homes like the one displayed in the image below, and even in ecclesiastical settings. Many were designed and made by some of the most important German artists and workshops of the 16th century, including Albrecht Dürer and Tilman Riemenschneider. An invention of the medieval imagination, wild men and women were neither fully human nor animal and were covered in shaggy hair except for their face, hands, and feet. Living in remote forests, they were ruled by their animalistic urges, and lacked the ability to speak, form rational thoughts, or follow religion. Wild men were the embodiment of chaos and heresy—the antithesis of the paragon of the civilized, Christian man. The mythical creature was renowned especially for his brutish, supernatural strength, but the chandelier’s wild man holds a coat-of-arms, his extraordinary strength subdued perhaps as a symbol of man’s ability to tame and control creatures of the wilderness. Master MZ, possibly Matthäus Zasinger (German, active about 1500), ¬The Embrace (detail). Engraving, about 1503. Toledo Museum of Art, Frederick B. and Kate L. Shoemaker Fund, 1976.140Published ReferencesGajdošová, Jana and Matthew Reeves, Gothic Spirit: Medieval Art from Europe, London, Sam Fogg, 2020, cat. 27.Exhibition HistoryLondon, Sam Fogg, Frieze Master, October 4-7, 2018.

New York, Sam Fogg at Luhring Augustine, Gothic Spirit: Medieval Art from Europe, January 25 – March 7, 2020.

Comparative ReferencesSee also Bernheimer, Richard, Wild Men in the Middle Ages, Octagon Books, New York, 1970. See also Husband, Timothy B, The Wild Man: Medieval Myth and Symbolism, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980. See also Preising, Dagmar, Michael Rief and Christine Vogt, Artefakt und Naturwunder: Das Das Leuchterweibchen der Sammlung Ludwig, Bielefeld, Kerber Christof Verlag, 2011. See also Studničková, Milada, “Gens Fera. The Wild Men in the System of Borden Decoration of the Bible of Wenceslas IV,” Uměni 3, 2014, 214 – 239.