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Basel Munster Crypt Frieze

 

1981 Basler Münster Kryptafries, 112. H. "Aus der Fabel vom Kranken Löwen." Gift of Martin Kölle, July, '19.

This frieze shows on the left the fox reporting in to the sick king lion, who has wondered about his absence during the king's sickness. The fox's enemy, the wolf, has been painting the fox's absence as disloyalty. The fox answers that he has been searching far and wide for a remedy and has finally learned it. The king needs to apply the warm skin of a freshly skinned wolf! And is the scene on the right the skinning of the wolf or a shorthand presentation of the fable in which the fox is raised up out of a well by inviting the wolf to come down in the other bucket? What a thoughtful gift!