1 / 1

download image
This image is in the public domain. You can copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes. Learn more about our image policies.

Printed with fine black lines against cream-white paper, four nude, curvy women stand in a loose circle enclosed within an interior space, as a demon peeks around an opening along the left edge of this vertical engraving. The women nearly fill the composition and the room they occupy. Three of the women stand in a line in front of us so they span the foreground. The women to the left and center stand with their backs to us. The woman to our right and the woman on the far side of the circle face us. Their hair is bound up in headdresses, scarves, or veils. The woman to our right holds a swath of drapery across her hips and it cascades to the floor near a skull and long bone resting at their feet. An arched opening to the right and a squared opening to the left are both dark. An orb hangs above the group at the upper center, and it is inscribed with the letters “OGH” and the date, "1497." The demon peeking from the shadows along the left edge has a snout like a lion, and its gaping jaws reveal sharp teeth and a long tongue. It clutches a pair of thin sticks in one paw and flames flare up behind it. The contours of the women and the room are shaded with long, parallel strokes and crosshatching. A monogram with a capital D tucked between the legs of a wide, upper case A is inscribed at the bottom center of the sheet.

Albrecht Dürer

Four Naked Women, 1497

Not on View

Medium

engraving on laid paper

Dimensions

sheet (trimmed to image): 19.1 x 13.1 cm (7 1/2 x 5 3/16 in.)

Credit Line

Rosenwald Collection

Catalogue Raisonné

Meder, no. 69

Accession Number

1943.3.3462

Artists / Makers

Albrecht Dürer (artist) German, 1471 - 1528

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

in plate, upper center, on hanging ball: 1497 / ·O·G·H·; in plate, bottom center: AD [artist's monogram]; verso, lower left, in graphite by a later hand: FB [?] [erased]; verso, lower right, in graphite by a later hand: B.75 I / D.14 [?]; verso, lower center, in graphite by a later hand: 82 [upside down]; verso, bottom right, in graphite by a later hand: 392-; verso, bottom left, in graphite by a later hand: B-6492 [upside down]

Marks and Labels

none

Provenance

Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Lugt 1606 and Lugt 2398); (sale, Hollstein & Puppel, auction XLII, 1929, no. 392); purchased by Lessing J. Rosenwald [1891-1979], Jenkintown, PA (Lugt 1760b and Lugt 1932d), 1929; gift to NGA, 1943.

Associated Names

Rosenwald, Lessing Julius

Exhibition History

1964: Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA, 1964, no catalogue.

1971: Albrecht Dürer: The Early Graphic Works, Princeton University Art Museum, NJ, 1971, no. 7, repro.

1990: Eva/Ave: Woman in Renaissance and Baroque Prints, NGA, 1990, no. 104, repro.

1999: "Fate, Fortune, Nemesis: Albrecht Durer at the Century's End", Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, 1999.

Bibliography

1932: Meder, Joseph. Dürer-Katalog; ein Handbuch über Albrecht Dürers Stiche, Radierungen, Holzschnitte, deren Zustände, Ausgaben und Wasserzeichen. Vienna: Verlag Gilhofer und Ranschburg, 1932. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1971.

1990: Russell 1990, cat.no.104.

2001: Schoch, Rainer, Mattihas Mende, and Anna Scherbaum. Albrecht Dürer: Das druckgraphische Werk. Munich, 2001: vol. 1: no. 17.