The Men’s Bath

Prints and Drawings

1496/97

Albrecht Dürer
German, 1471-1528

Albrecht Dürer’s strikingly modern woodcut of men relaxing at an open-air bath boasts deep, dark ink and a warm, creamy paper tone suited to its celebration of naked flesh. This impression looks much the way it would have when it came off Dürer’s press around 1497. While others might have been posted on walls, perhaps at bathhouses, this particular Men’s Bath appears to have largely escaped handling until close to the present day. While ostensibly a genre scene, the print may protest the Nuremberg Council’s 1496 edict forbidding the town’s residents to visit bathhouses after an outbreak of syphilis and a drought.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Albrecht Dürer
Title: The Men’s Bath
Place: Germany (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1496–1497
Medium: Woodcut in black on cream laid paper
Dimensions: Image/sheet, trimmed within block: 39.2 × 28.3 cm (15 7/16 × 11 3/16 in.)
Credit Line: The Amanda S. Johnson and Marion J. Livingston Fund
Reference Number: 2009.133
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/197566/manifest.json

Bartsch 128

Schoch, Mende, & Scherbaum 107

Meder 266 a/f

Strauss 31

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.