Hercules and Cerberus, from The Labors of Hercules
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
Sheet: 4 3/16 × 3 1/16 in. (10.7 × 7.8 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Felix M. Warburg and his family, 1941
Accession Number
41.1.115
Tags
Art Historical Context
Heinrich Aldegrever’s 1550 engraving *Hercules and Cerberus* captures the hero’s final labor: dragging the fearsome three-headed watchdog of the underworld into the light of day. Created as part of a series illustrating the Labors of Hercules, the small print (just over four by three inches) demonstrates the artist’s remarkable ability to convey dramatic tension within a compact format. Aldegrever, a leading figure among the so-called “Little Masters” of sixteenth-century Germany, worked in the refined engraving tradition established by Albrecht Dürer, employing precise lines and subtle modeli...
About the Artist
Heinrich Aldegrever · 1502–1561
Heinrich Aldegrever, born in 1502 in Paderborn, Westphalia, to parents Herman and Katherine Trippenmeker—a family of clog-makers known by the dialect name Trippenmecker—emerged as a multifaceted artist in the German Renaissance. His early training remains undocumented, though he likely apprenticed in a Soest goldsmith's workshop after relocating there around 1525, where he joined the painters' gui...