Art Institute of Chicago

The First Knot

Albrecht Dürer

Date

c. 1507

Medium

Woodcut in black on ivory laid paper

Culture

Germany

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Around 1506, Albrecht Dürer designed a series of six ornate woodcuts of labyrinthine designs after a set of engravings by the school of Leonardo da Vinci, which he may have seen or acquired during an early trip to Italy. Though Dürer left them unsigned, possibly because he borrowed their source material, he referred in his diary to giving away his series of knots on a trip to the Netherlands, and this title has become standard. These impressions are printed on a thin, nearly translucent Italian paper, which may have influenced scholars to occasionally interpret them as embroidery patterns.

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