Fabel van de smid en de hond

A muscular blacksmith is shown in his workshop, raising a hammer to strike a piece of metal held by tongs on an anvil. The interior is filled with the tools of the trade, including various pincers and a large leather bellows used to stoke the fire. In the lower right, a dog sleeps soundly through the noise of the hammering, illustrating a moral fable about selective laziness.

Engraved while Sadeler was court artist to Rudolf II in Prague, this work adapts the animal fables of Marcus Gheeraerts into a refined Mannerist style. In the Rudolfine context, the forge was not merely a site of labor but a space of transformation often linked to the 'labora' of alchemy and the shaping of nature through human artifice.