Iron Maiden, Fictional Torture Device, 1863

Iron Maiden, Fictional Torture Device, 1863

A man is forced to kneel before an iron maiden in a dungeon in Nuremberg. The iron maiden (AKA, jungfernkuss, eiserne jungfrau, the virgin, kiss of the virgin) is a fictional iron cabinet torture device with a hinged front and spike-covered interior to enclose a human being. Wolfgang Schild, a professor of criminal law and criminal law history at the University of Bielefeld, has argued that putative iron maidens were pieced together from artifacts found in museums to create spectacular objects intended for exhibition. It is unlikely that any of these iron maidens were ever employed as instruments of torture. The 17th century iron maidens may have been constructed as probable misinterpretation of a medieval Schandmantel (coat of shame or barrel of shame), which was made of wood and metal but without spikes. Inspiration for the iron maiden may also have come from the Carthaginian execution of Marcus Atilius Regulus, who "packed him into a tight wooden box, spiked with sharp nails on all sides so that he could not lean in any direction without being pierced". The most famous iron maiden that popularized the design was that of Nuremberg, first displayed as far back as 1802. The original was lost in the Allied bombing of Nuremberg in 1944. Lithograph by Friedrich Perlberg, 1863.

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3900 x 3559 px | 39.7 MB

33.0 x 30.1 cm | 13.0 x 11.9 in (300 dpi)