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Your galleryDeath of the Virgin
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Find the small funeral procession at the top, then the hourglass standing on the cupboard at the right.
Israhel van Meckenem takes the subject Schongauer had engraved about ten years earlier and tells it his own way: the apostles crowd a tiled bedroom, one sprinkles holy water, and another kneels in front with his back to us. Above, a small scene shows what comes next, as her coffin is carried away in procession. Household things fill the right side, from the cupboard to the candlestick and the hourglass.
Engraving in black on cream laid paper · Image: 26 × 18.1 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Late Gothic and Early Renaissance
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Death of the Virgin
- Artist
- Israhel van Meckenem the Younger German, c. 1440/45-1503
- Date
- c. 1481
- Medium
- Engraving in black on cream laid paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 26 × 18.1 cm (10 1/4 × 7 3/16 in.); Sheet trimmed within platemark: 26.7 × 18.1 cm (10 9/16 × 7 3/16 in.)
- Credit line
- Bequest of Mrs. Potter Palmer, Jr.
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.