Cleveland Museum of Art
The Birth of the Virgin
Albrecht DürerLinkedCulture matchlcp-91cf98b472c5
- Date
- c. 1503–1504
- Medium
- woodcut
- Culture
- Germany, early 16th Century
- Department
- Prints
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 136188
From LinkedCulture
In this woodcut from around 1503, Albrecht Dürer sets the birth of the Virgin Mary inside a bustling German household that his Nuremberg audience would have recognized immediately. A midwife bathes the newborn in the right foreground, Saint Anna rests in a curtained bed above, and a winged angel soars through the vaulted space overhead, bridging the sacred and the ordinary. This print, part of Dürer's Life of the Virgin series, helped redefine what woodcut could achieve, proving the medium capable of richness and detail that rivaled painting.
Written by LinkedCulture for its video on this object. Machine-generated (claude-sonnet-4-6), not yet reviewed by a person. It is not part of the museum’s record.
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
Dürer devoted three woodcuts (1959.99.5-7) to the significant events in Mary’s youth prior to her sacred calling. His depiction of her birth recalls a contemporary birthing scene, complete with midwives, female friends, and relatives. Anna rests from her efforts in the background while an attendant bathes the infant Mary in the immediate right foreground. The religious significance of the event is made known by the presence of an angel above. In the subsequent prints Mary is presented several years later at the temple (running up the stairs), followed by her betrothal to an older widowed man named Joseph.
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Provenance & credit
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- Credit line
- Dudley P. Allen Fund
- Provenance
- ?–1959: (William H. Schab Gallery, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) | 1959–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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