Bring your favorites together in your free personal gallery.
Your galleryThe Virgin with the Dragonfly
Look first
- What catches your attention?
- Where does your eye go next?
- What would you ask about this work?
Show me
Find the small winged insect in the lower right corner, then the AD monogram at the bottom center and the sleeping Joseph at the left.
Dürer made this engraving about 1495, the year his first stay in Italy ended. Mary sits on a grassy bench holding the Child close while Joseph dozes beside her, God the Father and the dove of the Holy Spirit look down from the clouds, and a lake with boats and a town opens behind them. The print takes its name from the small insect at the lower right.
Engraving in black on ivory laid paper · Image/plate: 23.6 × 18.4 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Northern Renaissance
Look again
What do you notice now?
Try a quick sketch
Take a minute to sketch on any paper. No upload needed.
What did you draw first? What did you leave out?
Details and source
- Museum title
- The Virgin with the Dragonfly
- Artist
- Albrecht Dürer German, 1471-1528
- Date
- c. 1495
- Medium
- Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
- Dimensions
- Image/plate: 23.6 × 18.4 cm (9 5/16 × 7 1/4 in.); Sheet: 24.4 × 19.3 cm (9 5/8 × 7 5/8 in.)
- Credit line
- Clarence Buckingham Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Artist’s life 1471–1528
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.