Maximilian I

Lucas van Leyden

1520 · Etching and engraving · Drawings and Prints

This sensitive portrayal of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, produced in commemoration of his death in 1519, is one of Lucas's most technically innovative works. It demonstrates how, for the first time in Northern Europe, an artist combined the techniques of etching and engraving. Etching allowed Lucas greater freedom of draftsmanship, but at the time the print was made, its use as a printmaking technique was still rather new. He therefore turned to engraving in the areas that required greater precision. Thus, the artist engraved Maximilian's face with very fine, sharp lines, but the less rigid, wavering, and slightly more animated strokes in the rest of the composition were etched.

Artist

Lucas van Leyden

Date

1520

Medium

Etching and engraving

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Mortimer L. Schiff, 1919