Cleveland Museum of Art

The Virgin and Child with a Monkey

Albrecht Dürer

Date

c. 1498

Medium

engraving

Culture

Germany, late 15th Century-early 16th Century

Department

Prints

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Catholic theology during the Renaissance taught the Virgin Mary as a woman born without original sin, an idea manifested in botanical and zoological symbols. Albrecht Dürer portrayed the Virgin and Christ child within a garden enclosed by a low wood gate. Mary gazes down at her son, who holds a bird with his left hand, a symbol of the souls he will save through his Crucifixion. The tamed monkey, chained to the fence, is an accurate zoological study (probably a Barbary macaque) with a theological role: associated with bodily pleasure, it shows the power of Mary’s virtue over Eve’s sin. The monkey portrayed here can be identified as a Barbary macaque, which the artist may have seen as part of a zoological collection in Germany.

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