The Knight, the Young Girl, and Death

Around 1500, when this small panel was probably painted, Death ambushing the living was one of the most familiar images in Europe, spread by woodcuts and by dance-of-death murals. Here a young man in red rides off with a woman who clings to him, while Death, a rotting corpse, catches at the hem of her dress.

The picture has worn many names. At a Paris sale in 1809 it was school of Dürer. In 1813 it was simply Dürer, a picture as rare as it is curious. The Dürer specialist Friedrich Lippmann owned it as a Hans Leu, and the Louvre bought it in 1924 as a Barthel Beham. Today it counts as an early work by Hans Baldung Grien. One scholar cited by the museum reads a warning against adultery into it, since her headdress may mark her as married.