Holy Family with the Butterfly (c. 1495): Art, History and Details

Holy Family with the Butterfly (c. 1495) 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:

Dürer’s earliest engraving of the Virgin and Child theme features the Madonna seated on a grassy bench in an enclosed garden, a traditional subject alluding to her virginity. The divine presence of God the Father and the Holy Spirit in the form of the dove overhead reinforces her sacred role as the mother of the Messiah, while Joseph, idly napping to the side, imparts a sense of domesticity and humanity to the scene. Because Dürer returned to this theme continuously throughout his career, it is possible to track his artistic development in engraving. For example, Joseph’s awkward proportions reveal Dürer’s relative inexperience in the medium up to this point.

Object facts

• Title: Holy Family with the Butterfly
• Date: c. 1495
• Creator attribution: Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528)
• Culture: Germany, late 15th-early 16th Century
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1989.231

Collection credit

Bequest of Mrs. Severance A. Millikin

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.