Virgin and Child on a Crescent with a Diadem

Albrecht Dürer
(German, 1471-1528)
Virgin and Child on a Crescent with a Diadem
1514
Engraving
(71.109)

Albrecht Dürer was the most innovative and influential printmaker of the German Renaissance. The son of a goldsmith, he probably learned engraving techniques from his father. The simplicity and monumentality of this small devotional image, modeled tonally with a complex series of hatched and crosshatched lines, illustrates Dürer’s mastery of the engraving techniques.

Dürer was a shrewd businessman, and he designed many of his prints to appeal to a broad audience. Here the artist represents the Virgin Mary as the “woman clothed in the sun,” described in the Book of Revelations. This subject was especially popular during the sixteenth century.

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