Knight, death and devil

Albrecht Dürer
Germany
1471 – 1528

Knight, death and devil
1513
engraving on paper
Place made
Nuremberg, Germany
Medium
engraving on paper
Dimensions
24.4 x 18.8 cm (plate & sheet)
Credit line
Friends of the Art Gallery Purchase Fund 1976
Accession number
769G89
Signature and date
Signed and dated in plate l.l. "S.1513. / AD" the initials in monogram.
Provenance
Lionel Lindsay (b.1874-d.1961), Sydney, acquired 1940; purchased by the Gallery from Peter Lindsay, Sydney owned 1961-1976.
Catalogue raisonne
B.98; M.74e; Holl/G 74; S.E.71; TIB v.10, p.217, .098(e)
Media category
Print
Collection area
European prints

  • WALL LABEL: Knight, death and devil, 1513



    Albrecht Dürer exemplifies the Northern Renaissance. A highly talented artist, Dürer worked across a variety of media but he is best known today for his prints. Dürer embraced the medium of printmaking as a way of readily disseminating his art across Northern Europe, enabling him to bring many of the ideas of the Italian Renaissance to the German art world.

     

    This meaning of this print, which is considered one of Dürer’s three Meisterstiche (master engravings), remains ambiguous, although many historians propose that the knight is based on Erasmus’s Instructions for the Christian Soldier. The ongoing importance of this remarkable print is evidence of Dürer’s incomparable artistic skill in engraving, a skill still in demand today.

     

    Tansy Curtin, Curator of International Art Pre-1980



  • WALL LABEL: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, 2020

    ferred to as the Rider, and which since the late eighteenth century has been known as Knight, death and devil. The most widely accepted interpretation is that of the rider as the Christian knight, who, to overcome all evil, must zealously follow the straight and narrow path of virtue, ignoring sinful temptations. 

     

    He appears invincible and looks ahead steadfastly, neither distracted nor fearful of the spectre of death holding the hourglass, nor of the devil, represented as a grotesque horned beast. Like his master, the faithful dog confidently and resolutely travels forward. A skull sitting on a log in the left foreground, like the figure of death with his hourglass, symbolises the transience of earthly life. 

     

    Julie Robinson, Senior Curator, Prints, Drawings & Photographs

  • Five Centuries of Genius: European Master Printmaking

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 5 May 2000 – 2 October 2000

  • Inspired Design: Love & Death

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 18 November 2011 – 19 February 2012

  • The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 29 February 2020 – 16 August 2020

  • Reimagining the Renaissance

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 20 July 2024 – 13 April 2025

  • Durer and German Renaissance Printmaking, 1996-1997

    Cairns Art Gallery, 28 March 1996 – 11 May 1997
    Art Gallery of South Australia, 6 December 1996 – 23 February 1997
    Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, 20 June 1997 – 3 August 1997
    Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, 13 August 1997 – 28 September 1997
    Newcastle Art Gallery, 18 October 1997 – 30 November 1997
    Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetu, 17 March 1999 – 16 May 1999
  • [Book] Robinson, Julie. Dürer and German Renaissance Printmaking.
  • [Book] Robinson, Julie. Five Centuries of Genius: European Master Printmaking.
  • [Book] Strauss, Walter L. The Intaglio Prints of Albrecht Dürer: Engravings, Etchings & Drypoints.
  • [Book] Meder, Joseph. Dürer-Katalog: Ein Handbuch über Albrecht Dürer's Stiche, Radierungen, Holzschnitte, deren Zustände, Ausbagen und Wasserzeichen.
    TIB - The Illustrated Bartsch provides an English translation of Meder's states.
  • [Newsletter] n.d. Adelaide: Art Gallery of South Australia.
    Art Gallery of South Australia Newsletter Vol. 6, no. 16 (Sept. 1985)-v. 6, no. 54 (Mar. 1989)