Provenance

Haller Family

active 14th - 16th centuries

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Shown from the hips up in a room on the far side of a ledge, a young woman props up a naked baby so he stands on a cushion in this vertical painting. The woman’s left hand, to our right, supports the baby’s neck, and her other hand holds him upright. Both have pale skin tinged with pink and shaded with cool gray, and they face us at the center of the composition. The woman wears a royal-blue hooded garment that comes low over her forehead. Light blond curls catch the light under her hood, near her left cheek, to our right. She looks into the distance, as if over our right shoulder, with unfocused, pale brown eyes. She has a straight yet soft nose, flushed cheeks, closed pink lips, and a slight double chin. The nude baby has blond hair and blue eyes. His torso and limbs have the rolls and dimples of a toddler, and the woman’s hands press gently into the flesh. One of his elbows hooks up over the woman’s shoulder, next to his head. He points at the woman with his middle finger near her high neckline. The other arm, to our right, hangs by his side and he holds a piece of green and red fruit, possibly an apple. The child stands on one foot on the green cushion, which has red tassels. The pine-green pillow has sea glass-green highlights, suggesting a sheen or texture. His other foot rests against that standing calf, toes splayed. The wall behind the pair is marbled with green or red against tan, and a bright, scarlet-red cloth hangs behind the woman. A window on the back wall opens onto a landscape to our left. There, a plain of green grass is interrupted by a winding pathway, which leads to a walled fortification and gate. Beyond the gate are trees and mountains, hazy green and blue in the deep distance. Thick white clouds drift across the bright blue sky above. A sliver of a window in the upper right corner next to the baby has round, bull’s eye glass. In the lower corners of the painting are two heraldic coats of arms. The shield-shaped symbol to our left is of a knight’s helmet with red and white scrolls and vines. In the lower right corner a miniature man kneels behind a shield and holds a long cylindrical object.
Albrecht Dürer, Madonna and Child [obverse], c. 1496/1499, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.2.16.a

Madonna and Child [obverse]

Albrecht Dürer · c. 1496/1499 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.2.16.a

A man and two women walk on a dirt path through a verdant landscape, carrying packs, walking sticks, and other provisions, while in the distance fiery explosions spew flames and plumes of smoke sky-high in this horizontal painting. The people all have pale skin, and the women’s blond hair is bound up. Close to us and at the bottom center of the composition, the man and women walk to our right with their eyes cast down. The man walks at the front of the line, holding a stick with a canteen dangling from a cord over his right shoulder. In other left hand, he carries a basket filled with shiny silver disks. The man has wrinkled skin and a long gray beard. He wears a royal-blue coat lined with white fur over a brown tunic, black tights, and gray shoes. His head is wrapped in a turban with yellow coils beneath a purple and green split crown. The two women walk side-by-side behind the man. The woman farther from us holds two sticks in her left hand. A sack is looped over one stick that rests back across her shoulder. The other staff is vertical and is topped a skein of yarn with a spool. She holds a small saffron-orange chest with a silver handle and lock by her side with her right hand. She wears a long, voluminous, amethyst-purple dress bunched up in front to show a forest-green skirt underneath and three silver keys hanging at her knees. The second woman balances a lapis-blue, bulbous pack on her head with one hand. She wears a red dress with a high, white collar. She lifts the red skirt with her other hand to show a royal-blue skirt underneath. The path is lined with plants and a few rocks to each side. The land rises to steep, rocky outcroppings lined with trees. The shadowy form of a person walks away from us on the path where it winds back to the cliffs. The land dips down to a body of water in the near distance beyond the path. Lemon-yellow and crimson-red flames rise out of a town along the water’s edge in the distance. Streaks of black, rose-pink, and slate-blue smoke billow into the air. Another town burns along the horizon, which comes two-thirds of the way up the composition. The artist signed the work with his initials as if he had painted a rock face next to the path to our left, “AD” in a monogram.
Albrecht Dürer, Lot and His Daughters [reverse], c. 1496/1499, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.2.16.b

Lot and His Daughters [reverse]

Albrecht Dürer · c. 1496/1499 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.2.16.b

Bibliography

1966

  • Waller, Ernst. "Haller v. Hallerstein," Neue Deutsche Biographie. 17 (1966): 556.

1971

  • Anzelewsky, Fedja. Albrecht Dürer Das malerische Werk. Berlin, 1971: 142.

  • Hefner, Otto Titan von and Gustav Adelbert Seyler. Die Wappen des bayerischen Adels. J. Siebmacher's grosses Wappenbuch. 34 vols. Neustadt an der Aisch, 1971: 22:38, pl. 36.