Der Ritter (The Knight)

c. 1526

Hans Lützelburger after Hans Holbein the Younger

Associated Names
Hans Lützelburger

Artist, German, active 1517-1526

Hans Holbein the Younger

Artist After, German, 1497/1498 - 1543

This is a black-and-white print of an armored knight fighting a skeleton. The knight is in full armor, holding a sword. He is contorted to the side to avoid a blow from the skeleton's lance. The skeleton wears an armored breastplate with chainmail sleeves which hang loosely off of its bones, and it thrusts a long lance towards the knight. The scene is set in a landscape with an open field scattered with stones under a sky with dark clouds. The sun appears to set below the low horizon. At the very bottom of the print, an hourglass lies on its side. The print is inside a think black rectangular outline, and above the top are the words "Der Ritter."

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    woodcut

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Accession Number

    1964.8.1091

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Passavant, no. 30, State i


Artwork history & notes

Exhibition History

1973

  • Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Prints of Northern Europe from the National Gallery of Art Rosenwald Collection, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 1973, no. 64.

1974

  • Europe in Torment: 1450-1550, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, 1974, no. 29-6, repro.

Bibliography

1860

  • Passavant, Johann David. Le peintre-graveur, contenant l'histoire de la gravure sur bois, sur metalet au buring jusque vers la fin du XVI siecle .... 6 vols. Leipzig: Rudolph Weigel, 1860-1864.

1949

  • Hollstein, F.W.H. et al. German engravings, etchings and woodcuts, ca. 1400-1700. Vol. XIV A. Roosendaal, 1988: no. 99, 31.

Wikidata ID

Q65508704

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