Albrecht Dürer — The Bagpiper (1514)

A small engraving from Dürer's maturity, made the year after Knight, Death and the Devil and cut with the same unhurried precision — though the subject could hardly be further from chivalry.

A peasant stands with his back against a tree, cheeks full, the bag pressed under his arm and the drone rising past his shoulder. Dürer gives every surface its due: the cloth wound into a turban-like cap, the slashed and fringed doublet, the purse and long knife at the belt, the boots worn out of shape. A single fly has settled on the bark beside him. The plate is signed with the AD monogram and dated 1514 at lower left.

It was conceived as one of a pair with The Peasant Couple Dancing, engraved the same year in the same format. Dürer returned often to such figures in these years, observed without mockery but without idealisation either. The bagpipe itself carried a broad, earthy reputation in Northern imagery, and contemporaries would have read the piper accordingly.

• Artist: Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528)
• Date: 1514
• Original: engraving, approx. 11.5 × 7.5 cm (Bartsch 91)
• Museum-quality reproduction on fine art paper

Part of our medieval and Renaissance collection — see also our digital art book Knight, Death and the Devil.