Read the visual description
This is an ornate manuscript page. The manuscript is adorned with decorative borders featuring floral patterns at the top of the page and a large letter "A" embellished with vines. The text, written in Greek, is in the center of the page. Below the script, the painting depicts a pastoral landscape. On the lower left, a seated man with a brown beard plays a stringed instrument, resembling a viola or a lute, while on the lower right, another person clad in blue plays panpipes. Surrounding them are various animals including sheep and goats on top of small green hills with a small river in the center. Trees rise along the sides of the page, and two small coats of arms hang from branches on either side.
National Gallery of Art · Drawing
A Pastoral Landscape with Shepherds Playing a Viola and Panpipes
Albrecht Dürer
- Date
- 1496/1497
- Medium
- watercolor and gouache heightened with pen and ink and gold, pasted back onto page 1 of "Idylls and Other Texts"
- Dimensions
- page size: 31 x 20.3 cm (12 3/16 x 8 in.) overall size (book closed): 32.4 x 21.6 cm (12 3/4 x 8 1/2 in.)
- Classification
- Drawing
- Accession number
- 2005.1.1.a
- Credit line
- Woodner Collection
- Time span
- 1401 to 1500
- Department
- CG-E
Portfolio and series
- Volume
- Idylls and Other Texts
Subjects and terms
- German
- Violin
- Renaissance
- Trees
- Shepherds
Provenance
Willibald Pirckheimer [1470-1530]; then by descent, possibly through Pirckheimer's sister, Barbara Straube [died 1560] or his eldest daughter, Felicitas; the collection reunited through Felicitas' husband, Willibald Imhoff; then by descent to Hans Hieronymous Imhoff; by whom sold to Matthäus van Overbeck [died 1638], 1634; Earl of Sunderland (library shelfmark, B4:36, on inside front cover) (sale, London, Puttick and Simpson, 16 March 1883, lot 12, 345, to Quartich); Howell Wills (sale, London, Sotheby's, 11 July 1894, lot 831, to Quaritch, from whom acquired by Yates Thompson in 1897); Henry Yates Thompson (sale, London, Sotheby's, 3 June 1919, lot 29, bought in and subsequently presented by Yates Thompson to the London Library); London Library (sale, London, Sotheby's, 14 June 1966, lot 66); purchased by Edelmann; Schickedanz collection; (Rolf Kistner, Nuremberg); purchased by Ian Woodner, New York, 14 May 1985; by inheritance to his daughters, Andrea and Dian Woodner, New York, 1990.
NGA object ID 228829. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.