Cleveland Museum of Art
Peasant Couple Dancing
Albrecht DürerLinkedCulture matchlcp-91cf98b472c5
- Date
- 1514
- Medium
- engraving
- Culture
- Germany
- Department
- Prints
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 157050
From LinkedCulture
In this 1514 engraving, Albrecht Dürer flips the usual mockery of peasant life on its head. While the man behind her throws his arm wide in wild celebration, the woman at the center locks eyes with you directly, composed and deliberate. At her waist hang keys, a purse, and a knife, all recognized symbols of domestic authority. Dürer made these rural figures monumental, and in doing so, quietly demanded that viewers see a peasant woman as a person of real consequence.
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
Two figures in period clothing are engaged in a dynamic pose, one appearing to push or pull the other.
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
Since the 1400s, scenes of country peasants celebrating and dancing were common in northern art; such images often pictured the rural classes as rowdy, uncivilized, and prone to indulgence. In contrast, Dürer presented the country folk displayed here as monumental figures in extraordinary detail, thus elevating the subject. Dürer’s depictions are commentaries on social order and demonstrate his interests in humanity as well as the study of human proportion. Even though the role of gender in Dürer’s peasant scenes is scarcely discussed, he clearly locates the woman as the focal point of this engraving. As her companion hollers and waves his arm in reckless abandon, the stout woman appears deliberate in her movements. She gazes assertively at the viewer while drawing attention to the keys, purse, and knife at her waist—symbols of authority and power.
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Provenance & credit
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- Credit line
- Gift of Charlotte Trenkamp in memory of Henry Trenkamp Jr.
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