Currently not on view
The Lamentation,
ca. 1497–1500
Albrecht Dürer, 1471–1528; born and died Nuremberg, Germany; active Venice, Italy, and Nuremburg
x1957-144
Although he considered himself a painter first and foremost, Dürer acquired fame and fortune through his prints. He created several highly influential printed versions of the Passion narrative, in which he brought new life to traditional imagery of Jesus’s torture and execution through his expressive lines and gift for storytelling. This woodcut belongs to Dürer’s Large Passion series, which he completed in 1510 and published in book form the following year. In this contemplative scene, the horrific sight of Christ’s broken and lifeless body inspires dramatic gestures and sorrowful expressions in the figures and also in nature: the swooping birds and sinuous branches of the dead tree become evocative metaphors of the mourners’ grief.
More About This Object
Information
Title
The Lamentation
Dates
ca. 1497–1500
Maker
Medium
Woodcut
Dimensions
block: 39.2 × 28.2 cm (15 7/16 × 11 1/8 in.)
sheet: 40.3 x 29 cm. (15 7/8 x 11 7/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of John P. Poe, Class of 1922, in memory of Albert M. Friend, Jr., Class of 1915
Object Number
x1957-144
Place Made
Europe, Germany, Nuremburg
Inscription
Monogram in block, lower center: AD
Marks/Labels/Seals
Watermark: flower and triangle, M 127
Collector's stamp, verso lower left corner: F / J+B
Reference Numbers
Bartsch 13; Dodgson 20; Hollstein 122; Meder 122; Schoch 162
Materials
Techniques
-
Adam vom Bartsch, "Volume 7," Le peintre graveur ... (Vienne: J. V. Degen, 1803-05).
, nos. 3–17, pp. 33–39 - Arthur Mayger Hind, Albrecht Dürer: his engravings and woodcuts (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1911)., p. 14
-
Campbell Dodgson, Albrecht Dürer (London: Medici Society, 1926).
, no. 61, p. 296 - Joseph Meder, Dürer-Katalog, ein handbuch über Albrecht Dürers stiche, radierungen, Holzschnitte, deren zustände, ausgaben und wasserzeichen (Vienna: Gilhofer & Rauschburg, 1932)., no. 3–18, p. 70 (illus.)
- Erwin Panofsky, Albrecht Dürer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945)., no. 1610
- Frances Follin Jones, "Recent aquisitions of Ancient Art", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University, 17, no. 1 (1958): p. 41–43., p. 42
-
F.W.H. Hollstein, “Dürer,” German engravings, etchings, and woodcuts, ca. 1400-1700 (Amsterdam: M. Hertzberger, 1962).
, no. 126 -
Rainer Schoch, Matthias Mende, and Anna Scherbaum, Albrecht Dürer: das druckgraphische Werk (München: Prestel, 2001).
, no. 187
