Cleveland Museum of Art
The Great Triumphal Car of Emperor Maximilian
Albrecht DürerLinkedCulture matchlcp-91cf98b472c5
- Date
- 1523
- Medium
- woodcut
- Culture
- Germany
- Department
- Prints
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 124270
From LinkedCulture
This woodcut was Albrecht Dürer's tribute to a dead emperor, published at his own expense four years after Maximilian I was gone. In the image, pairs of richly decorated horses stride forward, guided by female figures labeled in Latin, including Moderatio and Providentia, their reins curving in elegant lines across the sheet. Dürer designed the entire allegorical car, with wheels of Magnificence and Glory and a driver named Reason, while his friend Willibald Pirckheimer composed the Latin inscriptions. It remains one of the most ambitious printed propaganda projects of the Renaissance.
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From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
Dürer conceived this fantastical chariot as part of a larger commission to depict Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (reigned 1486–1519) in a triumphal procession. The ruler sits enthroned in the lavish car, as Victory holds a laurel wreath above his imperial crown. Her feathered wings list Maximilian’s military campaigns. Nearly every component of the allegorical pageant—from the entourage of female attendants to the laurel garlands—has a Latin label describing honorable qualities of an ideal prince. The car rolls on wheels of Magnificence, Honor, Dignity, and Glory. Its driver is Reason, who guides a team of 12 horses with reins of Nobility and Power. Virtues of Justice, Strength, Wisdom, and Temperance, stand on pedestals arranged around the emperor. Maximilian died in 1519, before the ambitious commission could be completed. Dürer published The Great Triumphal Car at his own expense with text composed by his friend Willibald Pirckheimer (1470–1530).
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Provenance & credit
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- Credit line
- Dudley P. Allen Fund
- Provenance
- with Richard H. Zinser, New York | 1945: Purchased by the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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