Minneapolis Institute of Art
Four Naked Women
Albrecht DürerLinkedCulture matchlcp-840f7214ff34
- Date
- 1497
- Medium
- Engraving
- Department
- European Art
- Institution
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Object ID
- 43386
From LinkedCulture
In 1497, Albrecht Dürer engraved four powerfully built nude women crowded into a tight interior, a skull and bone at their feet, a demon peering out from flames at the left edge. Above them hangs a sphere marked with the cryptic letters O.G.H., whose meaning still isn't settled. That same year, Dürer's own godfather was reprinting the era's most infamous witch-hunting handbook. What makes this engraving so haunting is that it never tells you whether these women are innocent or guilty.
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 Minneapolis Institute of Art record
As the year 1500 approached, fear of God’s Last Judgement intensified. Given society's fear of women, it was but a small leap to the label of “witch.” In 1496, Albrecht Dürer’s godfather printed his second edition of Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches' Hammer), a handbook for detecting witches. It said women's insatiable desires made them throw in with the devil. Dürer’s 1497 engraving hints at conspiratorial mischief as four powerful nudes loom above a skull and bone, while a demon menaces at left. The puzzling O.G.H. on the globe may stand for O Gott hüte (O God protect) or perhaps Orcus, Gehenna, Hades (Hell in Latin, Hebrew, and Greek). Germany, Europe
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Provenance & credit
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- Credit line
- The William Hood Dunwoody Fund
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