print
- Museum number
- Gg,4B.29
- Title
- Object: Melencolia
- Description
-
Melancholia; winged whole-length female figure seated on a plinth; her head resting on her left hand, the elbow placed on a book; holding a pair of dividers in her left hand; a sphere, small saw and chisel in foreground. 1539
Engraving
- Production date
- 1539
- Dimensions
-
Height: 79 millimetres
-
Width: 52 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
-
The date 1539 appears on the third state of the print. Clearly based on Dürer's famous Melencolia of 1514. Beham uses the position of the figure, also includes some of the scientific instruments, but reinterprets the image with erotic rather than intellectual overtones.
See G. Bartrum, 'German Renaissance Prints', exh. cat., BM, London 1995, no.98.
-
BM also has impressions of the first, third, fourth and fifth states, see 1891,1015.4, 1882,0812.350, E,4.411 and 1895,0915.382.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1814
- Acquisition notes
- Not known how acquired.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- Gg,4B.29
- Additional IDs
-
Other BM number: 1982,U.3244
