Ascension of Christ (c. 1515): Art, History and Details

Ascension of Christ (c. 1515) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Forty days after his Resurrection, Christ made his final appearance to his apostles. The story of the Ascension (Acts 1:9-12) tells that Christ's apostles were standing with him on the Mount of Olives when he was lifted up and taken to heaven in a cloud. Dürer depicted Christ with the traditional signs of his role as world saviour-making a gesture of blessing with his right hand and holding a cross-topped globe in his left. The artist included cherubs in the cloud, along with Christ's footprints, which, according to later tradition, were preserved on the Mount of Olives.

Object facts

• Title: Ascension of Christ
• Date: c. 1515
• Creator attribution: Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: pen and brown ink
• Dimensions: Sheet: 31 x 22.1 cm (12 3/16 x 8 11/16 in.); Framed: 52.5 x 39.8 x 2.3 cm (20 11/16 x 15 11/16 x 7/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - German
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1952.530

Collection credit

Gift of the Hanna Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Francis, Henry. "Two Drawings by Albrecht Dürer." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 42, no. 1 (January 1955): 3-5.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.