Virgin and Child with Saint Anneprobably 1519
Three generations fill this close, half-length panel: Saint Anne, wrapped in a white headcloth, rests a hand on the shoulder of her daughter Mary, who folds her hands in prayer over the sleeping Christ Child. More about this work
About this work
Three generations fill this close, half-length panel: Saint Anne, wrapped in a white headcloth, rests a hand on the shoulder of her daughter Mary, who folds her hands in prayer over the sleeping Christ Child. Dürer crops the figures tightly so that we seem to stand at the family’s side, and he sets the lined, watchful face of the older woman against the smooth features of the younger. The meditative mood, the quiet foreboding of the sleeping child and the precise, enamel-like oil technique on linden wood are characteristic of his late paintings.
Written by Ochre Editions.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Albrecht Dürer
German, 1471–1528 · Born and died in Nuremberg.
Dürer trained as a goldsmith with his father and then under the Nuremberg painter Michael Wolgemut, whose studio produced woodcut book illustrations. Two journeys to Italy brought him into contact with Venetian painting and the theory of proportion, which he set out to bring north. He raised woodcut and engraving to new heights of detail and ambition, issuing his own series such as The Apocalypse and The Life of the Virgin, and his engraving Adam and Eve of 1504 shows his study of the ideal human figure.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Met has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 14.40.633
- Credit
- Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Type
- Paintings
- Department
- European Paintings
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
