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Albrecht Dürer creates Melencolia I

When
1514
Where
Unspecified
Episodes
1

In 1514, Albrecht Dürer created the engraving Melencolia I, a work featuring a winged female figure and a magic square. The piece is considered one of his master prints and reflects themes of grief and intellectual contemplation.

Episodes

  1. 1514 · UnspecifiedCreation of Melencolia I

    Dürer created the engraving Melencolia I in 1514, featuring a winged female figure and a magic square.

Background and detail

Creation and Context. Dürer produced this large engraving in 1514, a period marked by the deaths of several friends and his mother. These personal losses may have influenced the work's gloomy tone. The piece is classified as one of his three Meisterstiche, or master prints.

Iconography and Symbolism. The central subject is an enigmatic winged female figure, interpreted as a personification of melancholia. The engraving includes a 4x4 magic square, the first printed in Europe, which encodes the date 1514. Scholars have linked its symbolism to Plato and Dürer's interest in geometry.

People involved

Sources

  1. Melencolia I Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-02

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.