Artwork Page for The Death of the Virgin

Details / Information for The Death of the Virgin

Series Title: The Life of the Virgin

The Death of the Virgin

1510

Albrecht Dürer

(German, 1471–1528)
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Culture
Germany, early 16th Century
Medium
woodcut
Credit Line
Dudley P. Allen Fund 1959.99.18
Catalogue raisonné
Meder 205
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print

Description

Dürer depicted the scene of the Virgin’s death (1959.99.18) as an intimate one, with the apostles keeping vigil around her deathbed. Three days later they witnessed Mary’s bodily assumption into paradise where she was crowned the Queen of Heaven (1959.99.19). The final print (1959.99.20), which some believe was conceived independently from the series because it falls outside of the typical narrative, shows the Virgin in a domestic setting surrounded by several saints, angels, and putti that celebrate her life-an especially fitting way to end the series.
A vertically oriented woodcut in dense black-inked fine lines and hatching depicts the Virgin Mary and several men, all with light skin tones, in a vaulted room. Mary, her head covered with a veil, lies in a canopied bed as a man holds a candle toward her hands. Another stands holding a tall cross. In the foreground, a man kneels with his back turned, while another sits reading near a smoking incense burner.

The Death of the Virgin

1510

Albrecht Dürer

(German, 1471–1528)
Germany, early 16th Century

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