The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 29, 2025

Landscape with Two Pines

1521–22
(German, c. 1480–1538)
Germany
etching
Platemark: 11.8 x 16.3 cm (4 5/8 x 6 7/16 in.); Sheet: 11.8 x 16.3 cm (4 5/8 x 6 7/16 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1953.627
Catalogue raisonné: Hollstein 91; Bartsch VIII.68.74; Winzinger 178
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

To make this early etching, the artist used an iron plate rather than the more supple copper, which would shortly come to dominate etching technique.

Description

Primarily a painter and draftsman, Albrecht Altdorfer made only nine etchings, which were intended to imitate his drawings. Those he made between 1522 and 1525—printed in very small numbers for a growing market of print collector—are considered the first prints in European art to depict pure landscape without narrative or devotional content. Here, he displayed remarkable freedom of draftsmanship and apparent spontaneity. The site depicted cannot be readily identified,
and Altdorfer probably composed it from his imagination. Early etchings, such as this one, were made on iron rather than copper plates, which rendered the lines slightly hazy.
  • Count Yorck von Wartenburg, Klein-Oels (Lugt 2669)
  • The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 649 archive.org
    Talbot, Charles W., and Alan Shestack. Prints and Drawings of the Danube School; An Exhibition of South German and Austrian Graphic Art of 1500 to 1560; [Catalogue]. [New Haven]: [Printed by the Carl Purington Rollins Printing-Office of the Yale University Press], 1969. p. 58, no. 58; repro. pl. 39
  • Love Gardens / Forbidden Fruit. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 2-October 29, 2023).
    Gallery rotation (Gallery 114): April 13, 2015 -
    Northern Landscape Traditions: 16th and 17th Century Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 10-December 31, 1989).
    Prints 1400-1800. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (December 18, 1956-January 20, 1957); The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (February 1-March 3, 1957); Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN (November 1-December 1, 1957).
  • {{cite web|title=Landscape with Two Pines|url=false|author=Albrecht Altdorfer|year=1521–22|access-date=29 April 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1953.627