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The Year's End
Engraving, 4.92 x 7.3 cm, by Hans Sebald Beham, 1546
Los Angeles County Museum of Art


The scene shows a half-dressed man moving ahead with his arm raised, pulling a woman along by the wrist—his step urgent, hers more restrained. Behind them, two peasants play pipe and drum, as if sounding out the last echoes of the old year. The image carries both satire and symbolism, where time passes not with ceremony but with a kind of worn, uneasy push forward.