The Young Peasant and His Wife, ca. 1497

About the Work

With a showy gesture, the young peasant is fairly shouting at his companion. Contrary to the work’s traditional title, she is unmarried, as we know from her bare head. She nevertheless appears little impressed by her suitor’s grandiloquent advance. Here Dürer availed himself of the peasant satire, a genre popular among townsfolk. The figures and their relationship almost give the impression of having been observed ‘live’.