River Landscape with Three Bare Willow-Trees at Right and a Long Winding Wooden Bridge at Center Leading to a Village
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Sheet: 6 in. × 8 3/4 in. (15.3 × 22.3 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
41.1.165
Art Historical Context
This etching by Augustin Hirschvogel presents a tranquil river scene from 1546, featuring three bare willow trees on the right and a long, winding wooden bridge that draws the eye toward a distant village. The composition emphasizes natural elements and spatial depth, typical of early landscape-focused prints that treated scenery as a worthy subject rather than mere background. Hirschvogel, a German artist working during the Northern Renaissance, helped popularize etching as a medium for capturing detailed topographical views. Unlike engraving, etching allowed for fluid lines that effectively...
About the Artist
Augustin Hirschvogel · 1503–1553
Augustin Hirschvogel (1503–1553) was born in Nuremberg into a prominent family of stained-glass painters who dominated the city's glass workshops during the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The son of Veit Hirschvogel the Elder (1461–1525), Nuremberg's official glazier who executed designs after Albrecht Dürer and Hans von Kulmbach, Augustin trained as a glass painter in his father's workshop. ...