Christ with the Orb of the World in His Left Hand
Medium
Woodcut
Dimensions
Sheet: 8 5/8 × 5 7/8 in. (21.9 × 15 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Felix M. Warburg, 1919
Accession Number
19.28.3
Tags
Art Historical Context
Hans Baldung Grien, leading German artist of the Northern Renaissance and a pupil of Albrecht Dürer, createdChrist with the Orb of World in His Left Hand in 1519. This intricate woodcut depicts Christ holding a globe symbolizing his universal dominion, often surrounded by angels as indicated by the work's tags. Measuring just 8 5/8 × 5 7/8 inches, its compact size made it ideal for personal devotion broad dissemination during an era when printed images revolutionized religious art. Woodcuts like this one highlight Baldung's mastery of the medium, a relief printing technique popular in early 1...
About the Artist
Hans Baldung (called Hans Baldung Grien) · 1484–1545
Hans Baldung Grien (1484/85–1545), born in Schwäbisch Gmünd into an erudite family of jurists and physicians, forsook academia to pursue art. His early training around 1500 took place in the Upper Rhineland, likely Strasbourg, before he apprenticed under Albrecht Dürer in Nuremberg from 1503 to 1507. There, the young artist honed his skills in painting, printmaking, and stained glass, even managin...