Holy Family with a Dragonfly
ca. 1495
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
Sheet: 9 5/16 × 11 1/4 in. (23.6 × 28.5 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Fletcher Fund, 1919
Accession Number
19.73.52
Tags
Art Historical Context
Albrecht Dürer’s *Holy Family with a Dragonfly* (ca. 1495) captures the young Christ child nestled between the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph in a tender domestic scene. Created when the German artist was in his mid-twenties, this engraving reflects the Northern Renaissance interest in merging sacred subjects with precise observation of the natural world. The delicate insect hovering nearby adds an unexpected touch of everyday life to the holy grouping. As one of Dür’s early masterpieces in printmaking, the work demonstrates his extraordinary command of the engraving technique. Fine, controlled...
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 ...