Virgin and Child with the Monkey, ca. 1498

About the Work

Since the ‘Holy Family with the Dragonfly’ (31352), Dürer had gained better command of the engraving technique and here made far more effective use of it. Precisely planned and engraved clusters of lines represent the motifs with great fidelity to nature—from the tethered guenon monkey (Dürer must have seen a specimen of the animal somewhere) and the Virgin and Child in the foreground to the reflecting surface of the water, the atmospheric “pond house”, and the city in the distance.