Hercules at the Crossroad — About This Work
Albrecht Dürer, c. 1498
About the Work
Albrecht Dürer’s Hercules at the Crossroad, c. 1498, is one of the artist’s most ambitious early engravings. Its compact sheet brings together a dense encounter of nude figures, landscape, gesture and finely worked surface, turning a small print into a scene that rewards sustained close looking.
Dürer had travelled from Nuremberg to Italy in 1494–95, and the Cleveland Museum of Art notes the influence of Andrea Mantegna on the young artist’s engagement with complex mythological subjects and the nude body. In this engraving Dürer incorporated a nymph from Mantegna’s Battle of the Sea Gods, absorbing an Italian Renaissance source into a composition unmistakably his own.
The engraving’s meaning remains deliberately charged rather than straightforward. A muscular male figure stands amid women, a satyr and a winged child, while a woman raises a knotted club; even small details carry weight, including the rooster on the hero’s helmet, which the Cleveland Museum of Art suggests may symbolize valour. Dürer compresses classical allusion, bodily tension and intricate observation into a sheet only 32.4 × 22.2 cm.
The Work
Artist: Albrecht Dürer
Title: Hercules at the Crossroad
Date: c. 1498
Medium: Engraving
Recorded dimensions: 22.2 × 32.4 cm
Collection: Cleveland Museum of Art
Accession number: 1961.170
Print & Presentation
Palatine presentation: 28 × 35.5 cm portrait frame.
The complete artwork is reproduced at its recorded scale, subject only to negligible whole-pixel rounding, without enlargement, reduction, cropping or distortion. The surrounding white presentation area accommodates the artwork within the framed presentation and is incorporated into the print rather than added as a separate mount.
Frame finishes: Black, White or Natural.
Paper & glazing: Enhanced Matte + Perspex.
Why Original Scale?
Most art-print shops offer the same image in a choice of Small, Medium and Large sizes. We take a different approach. For each edition, we begin with the recorded dimensions of the original work and reproduce the complete image at that scale, preserving its proportions and avoiding enlargement, reduction, cropping or distortion.
Source: Image: The Cleveland Museum of Art, CC0.
Care: Display in a dry interior away from prolonged direct sunlight and sources of moisture.
Notes from Palatine
If you would like to stay with us, Notes from Palatine is an occasional letter about newly added works, artists and the thinking behind the collection. There is no fixed schedule; we write when there is something worth sharing.
Palatine Editions · Original Scale Editions · palatineeditions.com