Young Couple Threatened by Death (The Promenade)
Albrecht Dürer
1498
- Medium
- Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
- Dimensions
- Image/sheet: 19.6 × 12 cm (7 3/4 × 4 3/4 in.)
- Genre
- engraving
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Tags
inkengravingprintlaid paperprints and drawingpaperpaper (fiber product)
About
The foreboding, corpselike figure of Death with an hourglass appears in many Northern Renaissance prints; in this engraving, he peeks out from behind a tree, holding his hourglass aloft. Each image is a reminder that death strikes the young, the Christian, and the chivalric alike; no one outlasts or avoids death. There is an evident connection between death and sensuality in this image, underlined by the suggestively positioned and sized sword.
