The Men's Bath

c. 1496–97 · Print · 38.89 × 28.1 cm

Can I see it?

Not on view at present

Where is “The Men's Bath” now? Collection: Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis. Not on view at present. Checked October 12, 2026.

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Minneapolis, United States

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

Checked: 20 hours ago
In this state since: Sep 25, 2026
Source: The museum

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About the work

Scantily clad men bathing and socializing was an unusual subject for a print in the 1400s. It may reflect Dürer’s interest in Italian Renaissance anatomical representation. It may also be a paean to homoeroticism. At least some of the men resemble known persons: the chubby beer drinker, Dürer’s humanist pal Willibald Pirckheimer; the foreground men with comb and flower, Nuremberg patricians and future Dürer patrons, brothers Lucas and Stephan Paumgärtner; the man leaning against the pump with the well-placed cock, Dürer himself, and the two musicians, perhaps self-portraits at younger ages. The onlooker in the background mirrors the voyeuristic role that Dürer assigns to those of us looking at this print.

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Details

Accession number: P.68.161

In the catalog

Prints Woodcut Renaissance 15th century Germany

Sources

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

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.