Young Bull
Albrecht Dürer
c. 1496, erroneously inscribed in another hand 1508
From an early age, Albrecht Dürer displayed an inquisitive mind and exceptional talent as a draftsman. He was born in Nuremberg and first trained as a goldsmith in his father’s shop before apprenticing with the painter Michael Wolgemut. One of his earliest animal drawings, Young Steer shows its subject grazing in an unseen field. The artist’s sure strokes and adept cross-hatching delineate the steer’s sculptural form, with taut skin stretched over a strong yet bony frame. Dürer’s precise draftsmanship recalls the drawings and prints of the celebrated German master Martin Schongauer, whom he greatly admired. This work was probably a study from nature; sketchy lines around the animal’s right hind foot, back, muzzle, and horns reveal that the artist originally drew the steer in a slightly different position, with his mouth open. A masterful engraver who would elevate printmaking to an expressive art form over the course of his career, Dürer employed the steer’s hindquarters for the barnyard scene in his engraving The Prodigal Son amid the Swine (1494/96), an impression of which is in the Art Institute.
| Title | Young Bull |
|---|---|
| Artist | Albrecht Dürer |
| Date | c. 1496, erroneously inscribed in another hand 1508 |
| Medium | Pen and black ink on ivory laid paper |
| Dimensions | 17.5 × 14 cm (6 15/16 × 5 9/16 in.) |
About Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer’s technically groundbreaking body of drawings and prints had a profound and lasting influence on the development of European art. Initially trained as a goldsmith by his father, Dürer was schooled in painting by Michael Wolgemut and began making works on paper in the 1490s.
Born in the German town of Nuremberg—a prosperous free city of the Holy Roman Empire and a center of commerce, book printing, and humanist learning—Dürer grew up in a culturally and artistically stimulating environment. He further expanded his intellectual horizons by traveling twice to Italy in his youth and once to the Netherlands as a mature artist. In addition to several paintings, Dürer produced works on paper of unparalleled sophistication. He worked in drawing, woodcut, and engraving—even briefly trying his hand at the less common techniques of etching and drypoint.
Durer’s drawings, such as the Art Institute’s Young Bull, are remarkable for their realism and refined penmanship. His unprecedentedly meticulous engravings, such as Nemesis, precisely conveyed surfaces, textures, and subtle effects of light. His wooducts—like his famous Apocalypse series or The Men’s Bath—were ambitious in terms of size, graphic complexity, and the variety and novelty of the subjects depicted. The Art Institute holds a comprehensive collection of Dürer’s prints that includes some rare and extremely fine impressions.