German Joust of Peace in High Saddles c. 1512 - 1515

This small drawing, "German Joust of Peace in High Saddles," was made anonymously using ink and watercolor on paper. The material itself—paper—is key to understanding its purpose, and the role of the artist, who was likely more of a recorder or documentarian than a fine artist in the modern sense. The thinness of the medium allowed for great detail, capturing the jousters' armor, the horses' trappings, and even the expressions on their faces. This wasn't about conveying an individual artistic vision, so much as capturing the social theater of the event. The production of such drawings was closely linked to the rise of printing, a technology that democratized access to images, but required skilled draftspeople to translate real-world scenes into reproducible formats. So, while the drawing may appear to be a quaint historical artifact, it’s actually deeply connected to the rise of mass media and the changing landscape of labor and craft.