Coat of Arms with Lion and Rooster
c. 1503
Medium
Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image/sheet, trimmed within platemark: 18.2 × 11.8 cm (7 3/16 × 4 11/16 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
4066
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Albrecht Dürer’s imaginary coat of arms is one of the Art Institute’s finest impressions, with a great delicacy of line and range of tonal values and textures. Though he produced a number of literal portraits as well as abstract family crests, Dürer’s over-the-top treatment of the flowing drapery, and the seemingly living symbols—crowing rooster, and lion rampant— on the crest and shield suggest the artist enjoyed taking a stale iconographic convention to its extremes.
About the Artist
Albrecht Dürer · 1471–1528
Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) stands as the preeminent figure of the Northern Renaissance and arguably the most influential artist in the history of printmaking. Born in Nuremberg on May 21, 1471, and dying in the same city on April 6, 1528, Dürer revolutionized the status of the artist in Northern Europe, transforming printmaking from a commercial craft into an independent fine art and establishing ...