Cleveland Museum of Art

The Little Fortune

Albrecht Dürer

Date

c. 1497

Medium

engraving

Culture

Germany, late 15th-early 16th Century

Department

Prints

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

With the help of a staff, Fortuna, the goddess of fortune or chance, balances on a sphere and holds a sprig of flowers in her left hand. In addition to representing her instability, the sphere suggests the worldly domain over which she influences at random. The flowers, traditionally identified as Eryngium, held aphrodisiac powers, suggesting the fickle nature of love. A more recent interpretation identifies them as Sternkraut, a plant that symbolized the idea that one’s fate has already been written. Both readings of the engraving, whether it regards love or life, inform the viewer that destiny is not of one’s own choosing.

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