The Sick Lion Summons the Animals to His Bedside from the Sick Lion blockbook, 2nd edition

The Sick Lion Summons the Animals to His Bedside from the Sick Lion blockbook, 2nd edition

Anonymous, German, Ulm or Basel, 15th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Sick Lion block book, consisting of nine woodcuts with text banderoles and almost three hundred lines of manuscript text, was created in the region of Basel in the 1450s. The fable of the sick lion formed the core of numerous literary works of the medieval period. The specific text of the block book, however, seems to have originated in that region, and its woodcut images have no known visual precedent. Two examples of the first edition exist; the Metropolitan's sheet is the only known surviving sheet from a later edition, copied probably less than a decade after the original. In the story, all the animals except the fox come to visit the sick lion. The wolf tells the lion that the fox does not care about his well-being. The fox gets his revenge by telling the lion that in traveling far and wide seeking a cure, he has learned that in order to get well the lion must skin a wolf alive and wrap himself in the warm skin. Although the fox seems to be the hero of the story, readers are also admonished that only unquestioning trust in their master--the lion, and by extension, the Church--will safeguard them from the evils of both the wolves and foxes of this world.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Sick Lion Summons the Animals to His Bedside from the Sick Lion blockbook, 2nd editionThe Sick Lion Summons the Animals to His Bedside from the Sick Lion blockbook, 2nd editionThe Sick Lion Summons the Animals to His Bedside from the Sick Lion blockbook, 2nd editionThe Sick Lion Summons the Animals to His Bedside from the Sick Lion blockbook, 2nd editionThe Sick Lion Summons the Animals to His Bedside from the Sick Lion blockbook, 2nd edition

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.