Wachshörnerhaube, 1972

About the Work

In the German-speaking world from the late Middle Ages until the nineteenth century, a woman entering wedlock and placing herself in the hands of her protector was said to “get under the bonnet”. A wife was expected to hide her hair and face under this ‘Haube’, which indicated marital status and promised her security and inviolability. Here, Ulrike Rosenbach has altered a fifteenth-century ‘Wax-Horn Bonnet’ in order to caricature the long road to female autonomy. In five stages, this emancipated woman lowers the bonnet from her head down to the level of a moustache, but leaves the horns in place, thus miming the ‘horned (cuckolded) man’.