Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand

Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand
Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand
Artist Albrecht Dürer
Year 1508
Type Oil on panel transferred to canvas
Dimensions 99 cm × 87 cm (39 in × 34 in)
Location Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand is an oil painting by Albrecht Dürer, dating to 1508 and now at the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, Austria. It is signed on a cartouche which hangs from the artist's self-portrait in the center, saying Iste fatiebat Ano Domini 1508 Albertus Dürer Aleman.

Contents

History

The painting was commissioned by Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, who had been Dürer's patron since 1496. Frederick himself chose the subject, as his collection of relics included some of the Ten thousand martyrs.

The similar 1496 woodcut.

Dürer had used the same subject for a woodcut of some ten years before, but in the new work he eliminated some macabre details such as the torture of the bishop Acacius, having his eyes stripped through a drill. This scene was replaced by a crucifixion on the right and by the presence of the bishop in chains behind it.

Detail of the forest.

The work was repeatedly mentioned in the correspondence between the artist and Jakob Heller of Frankfurt. Dürer received 280 florins for it.

Description

The painting illustrates the legendary martyrdom of ten thousand Christian soldiers perpetrated on the Mount Ararat by the King of Persia, Shapur I, by the order of the Roman emperor Hadrian or Antoninus Pius, or, according to other sources, Diocletian.

Dürer painted numerous different martyrdom scenes within a forest with clearings and cliffs. In the foreground are crucifixions, decapitations, crushing with a hammer. The Persian King is portrayed as an Ottoman sultan, riding a horse on the right. The executioners also wear gaudy Ottoman dresses. In the background are prisoners walking through a cliff from where they are throw down against rocks and thorny bushes, as well scenes of fighting, stoning and hitting with huge clubs.

At the center of the crowded scene, dressing in black, are two character who walk placidly, apparently unaware of the horrors around them: one is Dürer's self-portrait (holding his signature), the other his friend and humanist Konrad Celtis, who had died a few months before the execution of the painting.

Sources

  • Costantino Porcu, ed (2004). Dürer. Milan: Rizzoli. 

External links


v · d · eAlbrecht Dürer
Paintings
Portrait Diptych of Dürer's Parents (1490) · Portrait of Dürer's Father at 70 (1497) · Haller Madonna (c. 1498) · Lamentation of Christ (attributed, c. 1498) · Portrait of Oswolt Krell (1499) · Portrait of Elsbeth Tucker (1499) · Seven Sorrows Polyptych (c. 1500) · Lamentation of Christ (c. 1500) · Bagnacavallo Madonna (before 1505) · Christ among the Doctors‎ (1506) · Portrait of a Young Venetian Woman‎ (1505) · Feast of the Rosary‎ (1506) · Avarice‎ (1507) · Praying Hands (c. 1508) · Adam and Eve (1507) · Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand (1508) · Life of the Virgin (1510-1511) · Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I (1519) · Portrait of a Man (1521 or 24) · Portrait of Bernhart von Reesen (1521) · Portrait of Saint Jerome (1521) · The Four Apostles (1526) · Portrait of Hieronymus Holzschuher (1526) · Portrait of Jakob Muffel (1526)
Self-portraits
Self-Portrait at the age of 13 (drawing, 1484) · Self-Portrait c 1492 (drawing, 1492) · Self-Portrait (1493) · Self-portrait at 26 (1498) · Self-Portrait at 28 (1500)
Still life / nature
View of Arco (1495) · Three Linden Trees (c. 1494) · The House by the Pond (c 1497) · Young Hare (1502) · Little Piece of Turf (1502) · Great Piece of Turf (1503) · Wing of a Roller (1512) · Rhinoceros (1516)
Woodcuts / engravings
The Child Jesus Holding the Globe (1493) · Dürer's Wife Anges (1494) · The Muse Thalia (1495/96) · Angel with a Lute (1497) · Apocalypse (1498) · Saint Michael Fighting the Dragon (1498) · The Four Witches (1497) · The Sea Monster (1498-1500) · Saint Sebastian at the Column (1500) · Visitation (1503) · Joachim and Anne Meeting at the Golden Gate (1504) · Knight, Death and the Devil (1513) · Melencolia I (1514) · Saint Jerome in His Study (1514) · Triumphal Arch (1515) · Head of a Walrus (1514)
Drawings
Portrait of the artist's mother at the age of 63 (1514)
Alterpieces
The Jabach Alterpiece (c. 1500) · The Heller Alterpiece (c. 1508) · Adoration of the Trinity (1511)

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