The winged figure of a woman is seated within a scene densely populated with objects. Light illuminates her side from a source outside the image, to the right, throwing the rest of the image into relative shadow. The winged woman is seated to the right, with her left elbow propped up on her knee, and her head resting on her hand, facing left. She holds a compass in the other hand, positioned over something out of sight in her lap. She gazes with a furrowed brow toward the left, at something not pictured, apparently wrapped up in her own thoughts. She wears long robes and a garland of small-leafed plants over her wavy hair, flowing over her shoulders. A winged child is seated beside her, atop a wheel carved of stone. The child also has a focused facial expression, directed toward what it is writing, on a tablet. The wheel is propped up against the side of a tower at the right of the scene, on the outside of which hangs a set of scales, an hourglass, and a bell, and a magic square, showing a grid of numbers. At the base of the wheel a dog sleeps, curled between a sphere at foreground, and a flat, many-sided volume, behind. Behind this volume a ladder leans against the tower. The foreground is littered with various instruments related to carpentry and construction: a saw, a plane, a hammer and nails and lengths of wood. In the distance, framed by the ladder, the volume, and the tower, an expanse of water stretches out beneath the sky. A rainbow arcs through the sky. Beneath the arch the sun shines, low over the horizon, a point of blank paper as the convergence point of a dense cluster of lines making up the sky. Beside the sun, a bat flies, the word 'Melencolia I' engraved across its outstretched wings.

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Object Timeline

	We acquired this object.
2012	We photographed this object.
2024	You found it!

Print, Melencolia I, 1514

This is a Print. It was print maker: Albrecht Dürer. It is dated 1514. Its medium is engraving on off-white laid paper. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.

This object was bequest of George Campbell Cooper. It is credited Bequest of George Campbell Cooper.

Its dimensions are

23.8 x 18.5 cm (9 3/8 x 7 5/16 in.)

It is signed

Signed and dated in plate, lower right: AD

Cite this object as

Print, Melencolia I, 1514; Print Maker: Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528); Germany; engraving on off-white laid paper; 23.8 x 18.5 cm (9 3/8 x 7 5/16 in.); Bequest of George Campbell Cooper; 1896-3-28

Short URL http://cprhw.tt/o/2AKUR/
Accession Number 1896-3-28
Object ID 18098021