Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513): Art, History and Details

Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513) 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:

In this tour de force engraving, considered one of his three greatest “masterworks,” Albrecht Dürer portrayed a mounted soldier who resolutely forges through a dark gorge, ignoring a horned devil in his path. Confronted by Death itself, crowned with snakes and holding an hourglass indicating mortality, the soldier and his faithful dog demonstrate the strength of righteousness required to stay upon the right path. The skull underfoot suggests that others have not been so resolute. Indeed, this road of life is full of obstacles, with the city on the hill accessible, it seems, only by way of treacherous peaks.

Object facts

• Title: Knight, Death, and the Devil
• Date: 1513
• Creator attribution: Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Sheet: 24.4 x 19 cm (9 5/8 x 7 1/2 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1965.231

A detail from the museum

The personification of Death in this image holds an hourglass whose sands are exactly half full, which may indicate a turning point in the rider's life choices.

Collection credit

Elisabeth Severance Prentiss and Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Collections by exchange

Further reading listed by the museum

• Prasse, Leona. "Prints." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 31, no. 6 (June 1944): 106.
• "Peters, Emily J. "Love Gardens/Forbidden Fruit: Nature and landscape before 1600.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 63, no. 2 (2023): 12-13.
• “Exhibitions through November 2023.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 63, no. 3 (2023): 10-11.

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.