The ''Haller Madonna'' is an
oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
by
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer (; ; hu, Ajtósi Adalbert; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer (without an umlaut) or Due ...
, dating to between 1496 and 1499. It is now in the
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...
,
Washington, DC
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...
.
The reverse also contains a full Dürer painting, entitled ''Lot and His Daughters''.
Description
The ''Haller Madonna'' painting on the obverse depicts
Mary
Mary may refer to:
People
* Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name)
Religious contexts
* New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below
* Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...
and an athletic-looking, jowly
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
, with a window looking out to a distant view.
This scheme is similar to that of
Giovanni Bellini
Giovanni Bellini (; c. 1430 – 26 November 1516) was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. He was raised in the household of Jacopo Bellini, formerly thought to have been his father ...
's works, which Dürer had seen in his first sojourn in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
(1494-1495).
It features coats of arms in the lower corners, both representing prominent families from Dürer's home town of
Nuremberg
Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
, Germany. The left-hand arms are those of the
patrician
Patrician may refer to:
* Patrician (ancient Rome), the original aristocratic families of ancient Rome, and a synonym for "aristocratic" in modern English usage
* Patrician (post-Roman Europe), the governing elites of cities in parts of medieval ...
family
Haller von Hallerstein
Haller von Hallerstein is a noble patrician family from the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg which belonged to the wealthy ruling oligarchy during Nuremberg's ''Golden Age'' in late Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Around 1500 a branch became Hung ...
while the right-hand arms (technically a
mason's mark
A mason's mark is an engraved symbol often found on dressed stone in buildings and other public structures.
In stonemasonry
Regulations issued in Scotland in 1598 by James VI's Master of Works, William Schaw, stated that on admission to the guild ...
) symbolize the
Koberger family which came from the artisan class.
It has therefore been suggested that the painting was commissioned by (or for) Wolf Haller and his wife Ursula Koberger, probably intended for private devotion. The daughter of the printer
Anton Koberger
Anton Koberger (c. 1440/1445 – 3 October 1513) was the German goldsmith, printer and publisher who printed and published the ''Nuremberg Chronicle'', a landmark of incunabula, and was a successful bookseller of works from other printers. In 147 ...
(publisher of the famous ''
Nuremberg Chronicle
The ''Nuremberg Chronicle'' is an illustrated encyclopedia consisting of world historical accounts, as well as accounts told through biblical paraphrase. Subjects include human history in relation to the Bible, illustrated mythological creatures, ...
'', a landmark of
incunabula
In the history of printing, an incunable or incunabulum (plural incunables or incunabula, respectively), is a book, pamphlet, or broadside that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 1500. Incunabula were pro ...
) had married the young nobleman in 1491. Anton Koberger was Dürer's godfather and neighbor, he may have commissioned the painting as a gift for his daughter who had risen to the patriciate. Wolf Haller initially entered his father-in-law's business as a helper and traveler, but after a few years he fell out with him and fled to Vienna, where he died in 1505.
ADB: Anton Koberger
''(German biographical lexicon)''
In the mid-20th century the work belonged to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection in Lugano
Lugano (, , ; lmo, label=Ticinese dialect, Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Luga ...
(Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
). It was acquired by Samuel Kress, who later donated it to the American museum of Washington. When the painting was sold on the antiques market, it was attributed to Bellini; it was later assigned to the German painter due to the style of the landscape and the posture of the child, typical of northern European painting. The child holds a fruit, a symbol of the Original Sin
Original sin is the Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature in need of regeneration and a proclivity to sinful conduct. The biblical basis for the belief is generally found in Genesis 3 (t ...
; the red padding of the cushion, as well as the tassels, perhaps symbolize the blood of Jesus' Passion.
The reverse of the painting is also painted, with a picture known as ''Lot and His Daughters'', showing a Biblical scene of Lot's flight from Sodom. It includes a landscape and a seascape with explosions of fire in the background.diptych
A diptych (; from the Greek δίπτυχον, ''di'' "two" + '' ptychē'' "fold") is any object with two flat plates which form a pair, often attached by hinge. For example, the standard notebook and school exercise book of the ancient world w ...
showing also the donor, with Lot and his children in the left panel.
See also
* List of paintings by Albrecht Dürer
The following is an incomplete list of paintings by the German painter and engraver Albrecht Dürer.
See also
* List of engravings by Albrecht Dürer
* List of woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer
Sources
*Wolf, Norbert. ''Albrecht Dürer''. Preste ...
References
*
External links
Page at the museum's website
{{Dürer
Paintings by Albrecht Dürer
1490s paintings
Collections of the National Gallery of Art
Paintings of the Madonna and Child
Ships in art