polity holy roman empireconcept:era early modern

Young Hare

Name: Provenio Provenance Knowledge Graph
License: https://provenio.art/terms

Watercolor and gouache on paper (1502) by Albrecht Dürer. A meticulous study of a hare from direct observation, painted with extraordinary naturalistic detail. Held at the Albertina, Vienna.

Scholarly Significance

Dürer's most celebrated nature study; a foundational example of observational naturalism in Northern Renaissance art.

Notes

·Signed 'AD 1502' (Dürer's monogram) at upper right.
·The window reflection visible in the hare's eye is characteristic of Dürer's meticulous observational technique.
·Part of a larger program of nature studies; compare the Large Piece of Turf (1503, also Albertina).
·The hare carries symbolic associations in medieval and Renaissance iconography — speed, hearing, timidity, lunar cycles — though the work reads primarily as a pure nature study.
·Among the most frequently reproduced drawings in Western art history.