The Satyr Family (1505): Art, History and Details

The Satyr Family (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:

Dürer’s interest in mythological imagery stemmed from his familiarity with the Italian Renaissance. In this ambiguous engraving, Dürer depicted a satyr-a hybrid woodland creature typically associated with lust-in the role of father and family man. Instead of carousing in the forest, he plays music to his newborn child. Dürer’s play on the mother and child theme and the satyr’s unconventional fatherly behavior draws attention to a primal and simplified way of life. In contrast though, the group rests within an inhospitable dense forest where tops of trees are splintered and branches are dead, implying that the figures’ relaxed instinctual approach toward procreation and sexuality remains outside the bounds of Christian virtue.

Object facts

• Title: The Satyr Family
• Date: 1505
• Creator attribution: Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528)
• Culture: Germany, early 16th Century
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Image: 11.5 x 7 cm (4 1/2 x 2 3/4 in.); Sheet: 12.8 x 8.5 cm (5 1/16 x 3 3/8 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1959.224

Collection credit

In honor of William Mathewson Milliken

Further reading listed by the museum

• “Gifts of the Print Club of Cleveland.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 47, no. 2 (February 1960): 28–35.

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.