The Ill-Assorted Couple

1495–96 · Print · 13.18 × 13.81 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: 3 days ago
In this state since: Sep 25, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

About the work

Prints about the pitfalls of unequal love commonly depicted an older man ensnared by a coquettish young woman. Her cleavage in full view, this pretty mercenary reaches her hand out for payment before she will even glance at her companion. In reality, wars, brawls, and monasticism had depleted the male population in Albrecht Dürer's day, prompting fears that women would target older men with their wiles.

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Particulars

Accession number: P.68.150

In the catalog

Prints Engraving Renaissance 15th century Germany

Sources

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

Meanwhile, in the life of Albrecht Dürer

The whole life

c. 1492 – 1494
Basel: woodcuts for the printers
In Basel, a centre of printing, Dürer stayed with Georg Schongauer. A woodblock for the title page of the Letters of St Jerome (1492), signed with his name on the back, led to the works of the “Master of the Bergmann Press” being attributed to him; he may also have worked on the woodcuts for Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools.
July 1494
Marries Agnes Frey
Soon after returning to Nuremberg the 23-year-old Dürer married Agnes Frey, daughter of a prominent brass worker and amateur harpist; the match had been arranged in his absence, and marriage was required to open a workshop of his own. They had no children, and his letters suggest the marriage was not a happy one.
7 July 1494
Married: Agnes Dürer
1494–1495
First journey to Italy
Within three months of the wedding Dürer left alone for Italy, perhaps fleeing an outbreak of plague in Nuremberg. Crossing the Alps he made watercolour landscapes; in Venice he studied its art and judged Giovanni Bellini the best of its painters; Mantegna and Pollaiuolo left their mark on him.
1495
Opens his own workshop
Dürer opened his own workshop in Nuremberg, where over the next ten years he created much of his printmaking. His godfather, the publisher Anton Koberger, helped issue the first series; the city's crafts were governed by the Council rather than guilds, leaving him free to try new techniques and sell his own impressions.