Design for an Ornament or Signet Ring with the Arms of Lazarus Spengler

Getty Museum

Design for an Ornament or Signet Ring with the Arms of Lazarus Spengler

Creator

Albrecht Dürer

German Artist · 1471–1528

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> In Venice, I am treated as a nobleman. . . . Here I really am somebody, whereas at home I am just a hack." > >-Albrecht Dürer > > Though Dürer lamented Germany's medieval conception of artists, Italian Renaissance ideas first came north in a powerful way through him. Dürer initially trained in Nuremberg as a goldsmith, painter, and woodcutter. After visiting Venice in 1495, he intensely studied

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Object Description · Getty Museum

Scholars do not know the object for which this small circular design containing a coat of arms surrounded by two branches was actually used; suggestions have ranged from a signet ring to a bookplate. The coat of arms contains a demi-fleur-de-lis at the left and a demi-rose at the right; these might have belonged either to Matthaeus Lang von Wellenburg, cardinal of Salzburg, or to the Nuremburg humanist and lawyer Lazarus Spengler. As both the arms of these men reversed the position of the rose and fleur-de-lis, Albrecht Dürer could have made this design for an engraving. The trimmed flourish at the top of the sheet shows that someone cut the image from a larger sheet.

Getty Museum’s catalogue record

produced_by.carried_out_by[0].id
https://data.getty.edu/museum/collection/person/eebbc65a-3440-46c7-afac-b214bd3ccc79
Artist/Maker
Albrecht Dürer
subject_of[Homepage].id
https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103R3K
Date
1516
Medium
Pen and brown ink
Culture
German
Object Type
Drawing

Taken from LinkedCulture’s stored copy of Getty Museum’s record. A fresh capture of the museum’s own record has not been made for this object yet.

From LinkedCulture

This tiny circle of pen and brown ink, drawn by Albrecht Dürer in 1516, may have been designed for a signet ring, a bookplate, or possibly an engraving. Inside a border of sweeping foliate branches, a shield splits a fleur-de-lis on the left from a rose on the right, and the sheet itself has been trimmed from a larger page. Scholars still debate whether Dürer made this for a cardinal or a Nuremberg humanist, and that unresolved question makes this small drawing a rare window into how Renaissance artists worked through practical, everyday design problems.

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.

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Open this page QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.XmSSFDTKIsvQtsD0.sKgoAuV0mC9jIpnkt06rO1mHFW7ELWmVRR16xE3IJQow8osU8lYtVw8bcS2dYhy0U9PLEXzHd0k5BSu3tQ3Y_nPbDkFN-Ka7K_tKzqAKvvwTTYBroXhf76emk1C8afpB6A5lwxO_Rzf5v9e8CwK5L-hYFCQUPDAqkDl-uYazG9pFUz9GFpxQb3qY1Wh2Mm2QEh4v6uVkQ1gjysUUWLMhRY_JxLjc1rmtLVffmGsFWNQLEEI7sbwMOeYIZXL07GAq5YcUGwQ1I0ieSfiAuei2q2p8VMrl0bB1j7pYsKbARy5nCCYtI14QWFtQpK_a5IttxxKEIxo1xW4saJ8D_nz0J47ZXxG7m8pMmB9CQyd0-nLv15vbKSij2F3zf1a8Fmf4OO11lrO7RvhBWw9bge35See at Getty Museum QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.T8AoKUfxU7Z18Xxg.DJTsTcrnzzBRk5LSIgL45gddR74c-CR3zSWI3MVknApJswCo7lhaJEQNAxZ2YesszFQYrO4bg7c0DcWx5o0a19RT3dpvxs6YHl5wq8nJiY_EAcCg9KnaSgjVVE3YveJF9WGq0kmW2JcT9fzMOeEY3HtQmbkAs875j4JNggj4yw4tOLbgUgIQcfGETWFgd41LBVKZ77U-HrEeZLhN2Gix5ZfM8ZuljvnZlkVydVgV4Z9OvQUWdT9P--NIvJwZhETlJEagYl5Jr6pLkZ26NMuz9a6v-a666MxG6xB9fu96SYFVo5asxU_vYGXt1SPWViOSKdLtE5bSo_96pDsY0WNB2dDRFwfLj0HMtU73-Ej9D2WNhLbWcAoeZqXPo8o
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To search objects from different museums together, LinkedCulture reads each museum’s record into a common set of fields. The values below are LinkedCulture’s, under LinkedCulture’s names. They are not Getty Museum’s wording; the museum’s own record is shown above under its own labels.

Object ID
a059f75d-9111-4c40-81b4-13ba3f1a739a
Object Type
Drawing
  • Getty Museum field “Object Type” · copied as is
Creator
Albrecht Dürer
  • Getty Museum field “Artist/Maker” · copied as is
Culture
German
  • Getty Museum field “Culture” · copied as is
Medium
Pen and brown ink
  • Getty Museum field “Medium” · copied as is
Department
Drawings
  • Getty Museum field “Department” · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field · Getty's classification category is stored as department.
Credit Line
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
  • Getty Museum field “Standard Credit Line” · the first available of several museum fields
  • Getty Museum field “Source Credit Line” · the first available of several museum fields
Date
1516
  • Getty Museum field “Date” · copied as is
Begin Year
1516
  • Getty Museum field “produced_by.timespan.begin_of_the_begin” · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field
End Year
1516
  • Getty Museum field “produced_by.timespan.end_of_the_end” · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field

The museum’s own record has not been captured for this object yet, so the museum fields shown above are limited to values LinkedCulture stored unchanged.

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Design for an Ornament or Signet Ring with the Arms of Lazarus Spengler

Oct 13, 2026 · Short

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