Christ in Limbo

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Christ in Limbo

Albrecht DürerLinkedCulture matchlcp-840f7214ff34

From the Minneapolis Institute of Art record

Durer executed the Engraved Passion during the years 1507-1512, while in his mid-twenties. In the fifteen plates, Durer sought out difficult problems, such as extreme foreshortening. There is a marked darkening of the whole image, while the figures are accented by a restrained, yet expressive light that adds drama to the sombre events. The consistent placement of figures in the foreground unifies the series. Durer customarily sold them as a set, which seems to have been intended for the connoisseur collector. Christ in Limbo, also entitled the Harrowing of Hell, depicts a passage in the Aprcrophal text of the Bible, the Gospel of Nicodemus. After his Resurrection, Christ descended into Limbo (a border region of Hell, where the just awaited Christ's Redemption), and led the patriarchs, the Old Testament prophets, and Adam and Eve to salvation. The figure of Christ, holding his cross and standard, is seen literally wrenching a good soul from flames and devils. Germany, Europe

LinkedCulture assembled this text from several fields of Minneapolis Institute of Art’s catalogue record, so it is not the museum’s own wording as published. See “How LinkedCulture maps this record” below.

Minneapolis Institute of Art’s catalogue record

Dated
1512
Artist
Albrecht Dürer
Department
European Art
Credit
The William M. Ladd Collection Gift of Herschel V. Jones, 1916
Medium
Engraving

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

From LinkedCulture

This is the moment Christianity placed just after the Resurrection - Christ physically wrestling the righteous dead out of Hell. In Dürer's 1512 engraving, you can see him seizing a kneeling soul by the wrist and hauling them from the flames, while Adam and Eve emerge behind him into a burst of radiant light, and a winged demon perches overhead clutching a spear. The final plate of his Engraved Passion series, this print shows Dürer mastering dense shadow broken by a concentrated light that makes salvation look like an act of brute force.

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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How LinkedCulture maps this record

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 Minneapolis Institute of Art’s wording; the museum’s own record is shown above under its own labels.

Object ID
47078
Object Type
Prints
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Classification” · the first available of several museum fields
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Object Name” · the first available of several museum fields
Creator
Albrecht Dürer
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Artist” · copied as is
Medium
Engraving
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Medium” · copied as is
Department
European Art
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Department” · copied as is
Credit Line
The William M. Ladd Collection Gift of Herschel V. Jones, 1916
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Credit” · copied as is
Date
1512
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Dated” · copied as is
Begin Year
1512
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Dated” · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field
End Year
1512
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Dated” · 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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Christ in Limbo

Aug 21, 2026 · Short

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