The Men's Bath
1496/97
Medium
Woodcut in black on buff laid paper
Dimensions
Image/sheet, trimmed within block: 38.3 × 27.8 cm (15 1/8 × 11 in.)
Classification
woodcut
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
43940
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Albrecht Dürer’s Men’s Bath has been interpreted in many ways—from a humanist ode to Italian nudes to a group of portraits including three potential views of Dürer and one of his best friend, the rotund Willibald Pirckheimer. The waterline is only ankle-deep for the standing figures, while the seated pair in the foreground is more submerged; a Dürer look-alike controls the strategically placed pump. This large-scale woodcut was published shortly after a 1496 edict closed the bathhouses in Dürer’...
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 ...