The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Vertically oriented print created with densely packed, black-inked fine lines depicting people with light skin tones gathering around the baby Christ in a skeletal building. Three angels gather over the straw-stuffed basket in which Christ lays. Mary, a woman with wavy hair covered with a hood kneels and gazes down at him, two more people kneeling as they enter a doorway behind her. On the left, another person enters through a doorway behind the child.

The Nativity

c. 1502–3

Albrecht Dürer

(German, 1471–1528)
Germany, early 16th Century
woodcut
Sheet: 29.3 x 20.8 cm (11 9/16 x 8 3/16 in.)
Dudley P. Allen Fund 1959.99.10
Catalogue raisonné: Meder 197
Location: Not on view

Description

These eight woodcuts (1959.99.8–15) progress from Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would bear the Son of God, to the events of her early motherhood and beyond. This included the joy of sharing her pregnancy with her cousin Elizabeth, Jesus’s birth, and the subsequent arrival of the magi. After Jesus’s circumcision and presentation at the temple the Holy Family fled to Egypt to avoid Herod and stayed there for several years. The seemingly out of place last scene shows a glimpse of their daily life in Egypt as Joseph continues his carpentry and Mary spins wool. The Holy Family is surrounded by angels and helpful putti and are blessed by God the Father and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove overhead.
  • ?–1959
    (William H. Schab Gallery, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1959–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Dürer, Albrecht. The Life of the Virgin. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1959. Reproduced: p. 10; Plate X archive.org
    Haines, Claudia, Rebekkah Hart, and Emma Lazerson. “Birth.” In Creation and (Re)birth, edited by Gerhard Lutz, and Elina Gertsman, 8-12. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2024. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 11, fig. 11
    "Permanent Collection Installations.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 64, no. 4 (2024): 14-15. Reproduced: p. 14; Mentioned: p. 15 archive.org
  • Creation, Birth, and Rebirth. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 17, 2024-July 16, 2025).
    Dürer's Women: Images of Devotion and Desire. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 22-September 28, 2014).
    Against the Grain: Woodcuts from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 17-November 9, 2003).
    CMA 1996: Sets and Series: Five Centuries of Master Prints, February 20-May 5, 1996, no cat.
    Durer. Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (organizer) (April 6-May 8, 1971).
    Albrecht Dürer - 500th Anniversary. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 19-March 28, 1971).
  • {{cite web|title=The Nativity|url=false|author=Albrecht Dürer|year=c. 1502–3|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1959.99.10