ABSTRACT
A coincidence therefore exists between the production of the images and the increased marginalization of these two groups; in both cases their sexual activity was the focus. The drawing depicts the entwined bodies of three women: one peers from between her legs at the viewer, while a second straddles her, her arm wrapped around the third, who holds a cauldron in one hand and touches her own genitals with the other. Art historical literature has related these images to sexual discourses or to the formation of social categories. The studies of Baldung Grien’s depictions of witches link his work to polemics on witchcraft that would have been available to him in Strasbourg at the time. The images of bathing women also deviate from contemporary bath scenes which relate narratives of sexual exchange. The transition from a narrative of sexual exchange to an isolated view of women at the bath can be traced in two drawings by Durer.
