The Virgin and Child with the Monkey

c. 1498

Albrecht Dürer

Artist, German, 1471 - 1528

Printed with fine black lines and velvety black shading on off-white paper, a woman, baby, and monkey sit in a landscape with a body of water and a house on the far bank in this vertical engraving. In the center of the composition, the woman sits with her knees angled slightly to our right, but she turns to look down at the baby, held at her other hip. She has hooded eyes, a straight, thin nose, thin lips, and a rounded, narrow chin. Long wavy hair falls behind her shoulders, and her dress has a square neckline and voluminous sleeves and skirt. The sleeve of her left arm, to our right, is pushed up to the elbow, and that hand rests on the spin of a book. The nude child leans into her other hand, looking at a bird he holds by the legs. The child has short, curly hair, round cheeks, and a pudgy body. With his other hand, he holds up a small sack pierced with holes to the bird, which flaps its wings wide. The monkey crouches at the woman’s right foot, to our left, and comes almost to her knee. The animal’s eyes slant dramatically up at the outer corners, and a blaze of fur surrounds its face. It is tied around the middle and tethered to an iron ring affixed to a low, wooden, garden wall. The woman and child sit in the corner of the wall, which continues toward us to the right. Sailboats dot the water, which leads back to a tiny, distant town and mountains on the horizon. In the top third of the print, puffy and screens of clouds span the sky. The artist signed the print with his initials, an uppercase “D” tucked between the long legs of an uppercase “A” in the lower center.

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    engraving on laid paper

  • Credit Line

    Gift of R. Horace Gallatin

  • Dimensions

    sheet (trimmed to plate mark): 19.1 x 12.3 cm (7 1/2 x 4 13/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1949.1.20

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Meder, no. 30, State b


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Knoedler & Co., New York); purchased 1928 by R. Horace Gallatin [1871-1948], New York; gift to NGA, 1949.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1971

  • Dürer in America: His Graphic Work, NGA, 1971, no. 14, repro.

1973

  • Prints of the Italian Renaissance, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1973, no. 307.

1979

  • Early German Drawings & Prints: Two Recent Acquisitions and Related Works, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1979, no. 20.

1990

  • Eva/Ave: Woman in Renaissance and Baroque Prints, NGA, 1990, no. 50, repro.

1995

  • Imitation and Invention: Old Master Prints and Their Sources, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1995.

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.50.

2001

  • Schoch, Rainer, Mattihas Mende, and Anna Scherbaum. Albrecht Dürer: Das druckgraphische Werk. Munich, 2001: vol. 1: no. 24.

Inscriptions

in plate, bottom center: AD [artist's monogram]; verso, lower center, in graphite by a later hand: C.13565; verso, lower left, in graphite by a later hand: writing [possibly initials, faint/erased?]; verso, lower left, in graphite by a later hand: NR [?] 31001; verso, lower center, in graphite by a later hand: B.42

Markings

National Gallery (not Rosenwald)

Watermarks

none visible

Wikidata ID

Q18338506


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