About this artwork
Albrecht Dürer idolized the learned Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus, famously noting in his diary that Erasmus should take over for the Protestant revolutionary Martin Luther, whom Dürer feared had been killed. The artist and the scholar met three times in the Netherlands in 1520–21, and Dürer gave Erasmus several prints and drew his portrait. Erasmus also praised the artist, observing that, like artists of antiquity, “What cannot Dürer express in monochromes, that is, by black lines only?” Fittingly, Dürer’s expansive monochrome engraving includes Latin and Greek captions complimenting Erasmus’s scholarship, with his hefty tomes piled along its lower edge.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Prints and Drawings
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Artist
- Albrecht Dürer
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Title
- Erasmus of Rotterdam
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Place
- Germany (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- Made 1526
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Medium
- Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
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Dimensions
- Image/plate: 25.1 × 19.3 cm (9 15/16 × 7 5/8 in.); Sheet: 25.8 × 19.7 cm (10 3/16 × 7 13/16 in.)
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Credit Line
- Bequest of Mrs. Potter Palmer, Jr.
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Reference Number
- 1956.957
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IIIF Manifest
- https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/4118/manifest.json
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
