ABSTRACT
The tavern in Sebald Beham's Nuremberg prints becomes a multivalent image whose various associations add to the richness and complexity of meaning for Beham's kermis prints. This chapter explains the traditional moralizing and negative approach to public houses by investigating images of taverns designed by Beham, a pupil of Durer in Germany. Published in his home town of Nuremberg between 1528 and 1535 as woodcut prints, the works have as their subject kermis, which was centred on a tavern or inn in the sixteenth century. Beham's Large Kermis woodcut, the physically largest and most complex example of the theme, explores for the variety of meanings and associations the tavern held in sixteenth-century Germany and that reach beyond art history's traditional moralizing approach. The chapter argues that art historians need to consider a wider range of sources and associations when considering the tavern, including those relating to eating and drinking, social gatherings, and peasant festivals.
