The Dream

c. 1500 · Print · 18.73 × 11.75 cm

May one see it?

Not receiving at present

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Minneapolis, United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 10 days ago
In this state since: Sep 25, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

About the work

As a man snoozes in downy comfort beside a warm ceramic oven, a demon blows wicked thoughts into his ear with a bellows. A proverb says, “Idleness is the devil’s pillow.” Temptation has arrived in the form of a classical Venus, whose gesture invites the sleeper’s attention. Two symbols of unsteadiness suggest the man is vulnerable: a putto attempting to hike himself onto a pair of stilts and the sphere of Fate that can go in any direction. An apple sits on the stove to remind us that the devil offers a warmed-over version of the original temptation in the Garden of Eden.

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Particulars

Accession number: P.68.147

In the catalog

Prints Engraving Renaissance 16th century Germany

Sources

Minneapolis Institute of Art
Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art — public domain

Meanwhile, in the life of Albrecht Dürer

The whole life

1500
Jacopo de' Barbari and the secret of proportion
The Venetian Jacopo de' Barbari, whom Dürer had met in Venice, came to Nuremberg, and Dürer said he learned much from him about perspective, anatomy and proportion. Feeling that de' Barbari would not explain everything he knew, Dürer began studies of his own that became a lifelong preoccupation.
1501–1502
In the circle of Nuremberg's humanists
Through his lifelong friend Willibald Pirckheimer, Dürer entered the circle of Nuremberg's humanists. He engraved illustrations for Conrad Celtis's editions of Hrotsvitha (1501) and of his Four Books of Love (1502), and decorated 14 books in Pirckheimer's library with drawings.
1502
Death of his father
Albrecht Dürer the Elder died, and his son took on the care of his mother and his two younger brothers, Endres and Hans.

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