Hercules at the Crossroad

c. 1498

Albrecht Dürer

(German, 1471–1528)

Culture

Germany, late 15th-early 16th century

Medium

engraving

Measurements

Image: 32.4 x 22.2 cm (12 3/4 x 8 3/4 in.); Sheet: 32.4 x 22.2 cm (12 3/4 x 8 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1961.170

Catalogue raisonné

Meder 63 ii/ii

State

II/II

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Location

Not on view

Did You Know?

The rooster on the helmet of Hercules in this image may symbolize the hero's valor.

Description

In his journal, Albrecht Dürer referred to this enigmatic engraving as “the Hercules,” but the image is not a typical representation of the mythological hero’s 12 labors. The subject derives from a Greek parable, where Hercules decides between a life of pleasure or one of virtue. The moral dispute plays out here as a battle between two personifications, Virtue, wielding a club, and Pleasure, lying with a satyr. Hercules’s crossroad is a copse of trees between two paths: the ascent to civilization at left (pleasure?), or the winding river to the wilderness at right (virtue?).