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Melencolia I

1514
Not on view
The winged figure in Melencolia I has inspired many readings over its long history, although her ties to mathematical knowledge are often highlighted. Many of her accoutrements are borrowed from medieval and Renaissance allegories of geometry that personify it as a woman working at a table surrounded by tools. Perhaps most notably, a truncated rhombohedron looms large in the middle distance, dividing the foreground—a scene replete with the detritus of measurement—from the limitless background of a placid sea that vanishes into the horizon, presumably the type of natural territory the geometer purports to measure.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Melencolia I
  • Artist: Albrecht Dürer (German, Nuremberg 1471–1528 Nuremberg)
  • Date: 1514
  • Medium: Engraving; second state
  • Dimensions: sheet: 9 9/16 x 7 7/16 in. (24.3 x 18.9 cm) trimmed to plate line
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Fletcher Fund, 1919
  • Object Number: 19.73.85
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

More Artwork
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Opera Alberti Dureri. Das ist / Alle Bücher des weitberühmbten... .cont.: Underweysung der messung [. . .] vier Bücher von menschlicher Proportion; Etliche underricht /zu befestigung// der Stett/ Schloss und flecken
Albrecht Dürer
Johannes Janssonius
1603–4
Di Alberto Durero Pittore, e Geometra. . .della Simmetria dei Corpi Humani, Libri Quattro Nuouamente Tradotti dalla Lingua Latina nella Italiana
Multiple artists/makers
1591
The Nativity, from The Life of the Virgin, Latin Edition, 1511, Albrecht Dürer German, Woodcut
The Nativity, from The Life of the Virgin, Latin Edition, 1511
Albrecht Dürer
1511
Tractatus de horis Canonicis
Multiple artists/makers
June 8, 1514
Masquerade Dance with Torches, Albrecht Dürer German, Woodcut; Dershau restrike, 1922
Masquerade Dance with Torches
Albrecht Dürer
1922

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