The Massacre of the Innocents (Without the Fir Tree) (c. 1511–12): Art, History and Details

The Massacre of the Innocents (Without the Fir Tree) (c. 1511–12) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Marcantonio Raimondi (Italian, 1470/82–1527/34); Raphael (Italian, 1483–1520).

The work and its context

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

Raphael drew this composition to be engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi while working in the Vatican apartments adjacent to Michelangelo, who was then painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling. The emotive scene portrays a moment from the biblical Book of Matthew when King Herod, hearing of the birth of a savior, ordered the execution of all male children under two years of age. Known for the clarity and balance of his forms and compositions, the younger Raphael may have found inspiration for this composition in Michelangelo’s narrative intensity and active, twisting nude forms.

Object facts

• Title: The Massacre of the Innocents (Without the Fir Tree)
• Date: c. 1511–12
• Creator attribution: Marcantonio Raimondi (Italian, 1470/82–1527/34); Raphael (Italian, 1483–1520)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Sheet: 28 x 42.6 cm (11 x 16 3/4 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1964.23

Collection credit

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 39 no. 03, March 1999
• Takahatake, Naoko, et al. The Chiaroscuro Woodcut in Renaissance Italy. Los Angeles : Los Angeles County Museum of Art ; Munich ; New York : DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2018.

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.