The Cook and His Wife
ca. 1496
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
Sheet: 4 1/4 × 2 7/8 in. (10.8 × 7.3 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Mrs. William H. Osborn
Accession Number
67.679.3
Tags
Art Historical Context
### The Cook and His Wife brecht Dürer, renowned German artist of the Northern Renaissance, created *The Cook and His Wife around 1496, early in his prolific career in Nuremberg. This intimate engraving captures a middle-class couple—a cook and his wife—in a candid, everyday moment, surrounded by birds that hint at their domestic world. At just 4¼ × 2⅞ inches, its small scale invites close viewing, revealing Dürer's extraordinary precision in depicting textures from feathers to fabric folds. As one of Dürer's early masterpieces in engraving—a technique he elevated to new heights with intrica...
About the Artist
Albrecht Dürer · 1471–1528
Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) stands as the preeminent figure of the Northern Renaissance and arguably the most influential artist in the history of printmaking. Born in Nuremberg on May 21, 1471, and dying in the same city on April 6, 1528, Dürer revolutionized the status of the artist in Northern Europe, transforming printmaking from a commercial craft into an independent fine art and establishing ...