PROFESSOR ALBRECHT CLASSEN

Youth or Old Age in the World of Premodern Courtly Culture:

The Limbourg Brothers: Les très riches heures du Duc de Berry: Aout (August)
1412-16
 

As an example of the idealization of youth:

The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Netherlands:

The Hague, KB, 71 E 68:

Old Tobit leaves the banquet and wraps the dead man in a shroud , The Hague, MMW, 10 B 23:

Juno, as an old woman, gives bad advice to Semele who is loved by Jupiter, The Hague, KB, 74 G 27:

An old woman sitting near a city,  The Hague, KB, 71 D 42, fol. 279v:

Office of the Dead: The Hague, MMW, 10 F 50:

Cicero, Livre de viellesse, part 4, The Hague, KB, 128 C 3:

Old Age, The Hague, KB, 120 D 13:

I Genesis: Isaac sends Esau for venison, The Hague, KB, 78 D 47:

Joerg Wickram: Die zehen Alter der Welt (Strassburg: Jakob Froehlich, 1531)

This text, allegedly written by Wickram, shows the ten stages in human life.  In each woodcut, the protagonist encounters an hermit who never seems to change, whereas the former grows older by ten years each time we see him again.

Albrecht Duerer: His  Old Mother

Duerer: Death and Old Woman:

Duerer's Father at the age of 70, 1497. Oil on panel. National Gallery, London, UK.:

Duerer: Portrait of Wolgemut (1516), under whom he studied in his youth as an apprentice 1486-1489:

Albrecht Dürer. St. Jerome in His Study. 1514. Engraving:

Duerer: St. Jerome. 1521. Oil on panel. Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon, Portugal:

Duerer: Portrait of Jakob Muffel. 1526. Oil on panel. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemaldegalerie, Berlin:

Konrad von Soest: 1403

Jan van Eyck, ca. 1434: Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati
1431-32

Jan van Eyck: Portrait of a Man with a Carnation, 1435:

Jan van Eyck: The Virgin of Chancellor Rolin, 1435, Wood, 66 x 62 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris:

and detail:

Jan van Eyck: Portrait of Baudouin de Lannoy, c. 1435, Oil on wood, 26 x 20 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin:

Domenico Ghirlandaio : An Old Man and His Grandson, 1490, Musée du Louvre, Paris:

Domenico Ghirlandaio: Older Woman, Collection of the Duke of Devonshire, Chatsworth, 1486-1490:

Old Craftsmen, illustrations in: Hausbuch der Mendelschen Zwölfbrüderstiftung in Nürnberg, ca. 1425

MASTER of Flémalle: Mérode Altarpiece (right wing), c. 1427, Oil on wood, 64,5 x 27,3 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:

Vittore Carpaccio, Arrival of the English Ambassadors (detail), 1495-1500, Tempera on canvas
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice:

Hugo van der GOES: The Death of the Virgin (detail), c. 1480, Oil on wood, Groeninge Museum, Bruges:

Hans Memling: 1470-72, Oil on oak panel, 28,6 x 21,3 cm, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Cologne:
 

Hans Memling: Portrait of an Old Woman, 1470-75, Oil on wood, 35 x 29 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris:

Hans Memling: Portrait of an Old Man, 1470-75, Oil on wood, 34 x 29 cm, Staatliche Museen, Berlin:
 

Tilman Riemenschneider, Tomb of Rudolf von Scherenbergs (detail), c. 1495, Stone, Dom, Würzburg:

de Passe, 1599 (Series of the ten ages of man)

de Passe, ca. 1620 (Series of the senses)

de Passe after  de Vos (1590-ca. 1600) (Series of the four ages of man and temperaments)

Sadeler after de Vos, 1591: Dolor (Series of the four ages of man)

de Bruyn ca. 1600 (Series of ten ages of man)

Van Baburen, 1622 (The Procuress)

de Passe, ca. 1625-1630 (Series of the four elements)

anonymous, Steps of Life (ca. 1620-1630)

Goltzius: Winter and Old Age, 1589

Van den Bremden after Van de Venne (ca. 1625-1630)

All the images on this site can only be used for educational purposes in a classroom or for a academic lecture.

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