Life of the Virgin: The Nativity (1504–1505): Art, History and Details

Life of the Virgin: The Nativity (1504–1505) 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:

This print depicting Christ’s birth belongs to one of the numerous print series that Albrecht Dürer produced on religious themes. Here, the artist focused on everyday details of the Virgin Mary’s life story to emphasize her humanity. Dürer revolutionized the technique of woodcut with such scenes, which told biblical stories with enough descriptive detail and skillful narrative staging to minimize the need for text. The textures, fine details, and perspectival space of his woodcuts surpassed any examples of the medium before him.

Object facts

• Title: Life of the Virgin: The Nativity
• Date: 1504–1505
• Creator attribution: Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528)
• Culture: Germany, early 16th Century
• Type: Print
• Technique: woodcut
• Collection: PR - Woodcut
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1922.293

Collection credit

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland

Further reading listed by the museum

• Salsbury, Britany. “A Lasting Impression: To mark the Print Club of Cleveland's centennial, a new exhibition highlights some of the group's major donations.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 59, no. 2 (March/April 2019): 34-35.

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.