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Jun 5, 2006
Knight, Death, and the Devil
Knight, Death, and the Devil
1513
Albrecht Dürer
(German, 1471–1528)
Engraving
Support: Cream(3) laid paper
Sheet: 24.4 x 19 cm (9 5/8 x 7 1/2 in.)
Elisabeth Severance Prentiss and Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Collections by exchange 1965.231
Catalogue raisonné: Meder 1932, 74a/g
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Did you know?
The personification of Death in this image holds an hourglass whose sands are exactly half full, which may indicate a turning point in the rider's life choices.
Description
In this tour de force engraving, considered one of his three greatest “masterworks,” Albrecht Dürer portrayed a mounted soldier who resolutely forges through a dark gorge, ignoring a horned devil in his path. Confronted by Death itself, crowned with snakes and holding an hourglass indicating mortality, the soldier and his faithful dog demonstrate the strength of righteousness required to stay upon the right path. The skull underfoot suggests that others have not been
so resolute. Indeed, this road of life is full of obstacles, with the city on the hill accessible, it seems, only by way of treacherous peaks.
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