Cleveland Museum of Art
The Virgin with Hairband on a Crescent Moon
Albrecht DürerLinkedCulture matchlcp-91cf98b472c5
- Date
- 1508
- Medium
- engraving
- Culture
- Germany, late 15th-early 16th century
- Department
- Prints
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 135072
From LinkedCulture
In 1508, Albrecht Dürer engraved this image of the Virgin standing on a crescent moon, her head gently inclined toward the Christ Child she cradles in both arms. Fine cross-hatched lines build the full-body aureole of radiating light around her, while her robes fall in precisely observed folds. One of four engravings Dürer made on this subject, it fuses the humble mother with the apocalyptic Woman of Revelation 12, balancing theological weight with quiet, human tenderness.
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.
What the image shows
A religious figure holding a child, surrounded by radiating lines.
Generated by LinkedCulture from the photograph alone, without the museum’s catalogue text (Qwen/Qwen2.5-VL-7B-Instruct), and not yet reviewed by a person. It describes the picture, not the object’s history, and it is not part of the museum’s record.
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
Dürer made four engravings of the Virgin and Child standing on a crescent moon. These devotional images link the Madonna with the pregnant woman of the apocalypse from chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation. The verse says that "a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars . . . " appeared in heaven, delivering a son to conquer Satan—a prefiguration of Christ. In direct contrast with the crowned Virgin (1934.334), whose double aureole shines extravagantly around her figure, Dürer conceived the Madonna (1958.116) with simplicity and humility. In each he presents the dual roles of the Virgin as the Queen of Heaven and as the humble mother of Jesus.
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Provenance & credit
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- Credit line
- Bequest of Leonard C. Hanna Jr.
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