Aaron, from De Biblie uth der uthlegginge Doctoris Martini Luthers

Art Historical Context

This woodcut depicts Aaron, the biblical high priest and brother of Moses, as part of an illustrated Low German Bible based on Martin Luther’s translation. Created by Erhard Altdorfer in collaboration with printer Ludwig Dietz, the print belongs to the broader project of making Scripture accessible to lay readers during the Protestant Reformation. Luther’s German Bible, first published in the 1520s and 1530s, relied heavily on such images to engage audiences who could not yet read fluently. Altdorfer’s woodcut technique—carving bold lines into a wooden block for mass reproduction—allowed the image to circulate widely in affordable printed books. The medium’s crisp contrasts and simplified forms suited devotional texts, helping viewers recognize key figures like Aaron through attributes such as priestly robes or the budding rod. Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum as a gift in 1962, the sheet preserves an important example of how art and printing worked together to shape religious understanding in sixteenth-century northern Europe.