The Rich Man in Hell
after 1554
Medium
engraving
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1943.3.234
Art Historical Context
**The Rich Man in Hell is a striking engraving created after the design of Heinrich Aldegrever, a German printmaker of the Renaissance known as one of the "Little Masters for his intricate small-scale works. Dated after 1554 and housed in the National Gallery of's Rosenwald Collection, piece exemplifies the technical precision of 16th-century engraving, a burin carves fine lines into a copper plate to produce detailed, reproducible images. Aldegrever's, influenced by Albrecht Dürer and the Nuremberg tradition, blends sharp realism with moral symbolism, making engravings like this ideal for wid...