Virgin Crowned by an Angel (1520): Art, History and Details

Virgin Crowned by an Angel (1520) 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:

The boundary between heaven and earth is obscured in this engraving as an angel descends to crown the Virgin with a simple diadem. Although she is plainly dressed and sits on a simple wooden bench, Dürer portrays Mary as the Queen of Heaven. Her direct gaze communicates her role as an intermediary with God for the sake of humankind. Like his Virgin with the Swaddled Child of the same year, Dürer employed a halo emitting dense striations of light to emphasize the Virgin’s holiness. He considered the two part of a set of three engravings and gave several away during his journey to the Netherlands from 1520 to 1521.

Object facts

• Title: Virgin Crowned by an Angel
• Date: 1520
• Creator attribution: Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1973.215

Collection credit

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland

Further reading listed by the museum

• “The Year in Review for 1973.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 61, no. 2 (February 1974): 31–78.

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.