The Ravisher
circa 1495
15th century
11.4 cm x 10.2 cm (4 1/2 in. x 4 in.)
Albrecht Dürer
(Nuremberg, Germany, 1471 - 1528, Nuremberg, Germany)
Primary
Object Type:
print
Artist Nationality:
Europe, German
Medium and Support:
Engraving
Credit Line:
Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Archer M. Huntington Museum Fund, 1987
Accession Number:
1987.13
As one of Dürer’s earliest efforts in the medium of engraving, this personification of wild human nature, or possibly Death, overcoming a young maiden springs directly from the artist’s inherited Northern tradition. Both in terms of style and choice of subject matter, the print reveals a debt to the dry points of the Housebook Master, an artist who created similarly dynamic allegorical prints by drawing with a sharp needle directly onto a metal plate. Dürer’s affinity for such a coarse and informal style indicates an initial resistance to the kind of deliberate, highly systematic strokes that would come to characterize his mature engraving technique