print
- Museum number
- 1895,0122.356
- Description
-
Massacre of the Innocents; a soldier seen from behind at centre, looking on as a group of mothers outside an obliquely placed building at right are mourning the death of their children; at left a child impaled on a sword. 1511
Woodcut
- Production date
- 1511
- Dimensions
-
Height: 193 millimetres
-
Width: 146 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Early in his career Altdorfer was strongly influenced by his contemporaries Lucas Cranach and Albrecht Dürer but he also turned to Italian printmakers for inspiration. A collection of Italian engravings is recorded in his will. As a printmaker, Altdorfer developed a highly idiosyncratic style in which he paid as much attention to the emotional resonance of the subject as to its execution. The Massacre was made at the beginning of his printmaking career. Typical of many of his prints, extraneous structures dominate the composition; here, the overgrown edifice at the right demands our attention and overshadows the events below. It is a strange rendition of the subject; the elaborately dressed soldier with his back turned in the foreground obscures much of our view. Only the child impaled on a sword held aloft boldly announces the subject.
From M. McDonald, 'Ferdinand Columbus, Renaissance Collector', exh. cat., BM, London 2005, cat. 68.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2004 Jun-July, Madrid, 'LaCaixa', Ferdinand Columbus
2004 Oct-Dec, Seville, Salon Alto del Apeadero, Ferdinand Columbus
- Acquisition date
- 1895
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1895,0122.356
