Young Bull

Albrecht Dürer, c. 1496, erroneously inscribed in another hand 1508

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Artist: Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528)
Medium: Pen and black ink on ivory laid paper
Size: 17.5 × 14 cm (6 15/16 × 5 9/16 in.)
Museum: Art Institute of Chicago
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

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.

Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0.