About this artwork
A pair of prints from opposite sides of the Alps demonstrates the didactic capabilities of devotional printmaking. Both depict a sacred mountain that the soul must climb toward heaven. In Baccio Baldini’s extremely early engraved book illustration of an Italianate ladder of virtues, a monk successfully ascends, while a fashionable young man is dragged away by a demon representing worldly pleasures. Its thistle-laden German counterpart (1947.473) consists of banderole rungs filled with xylographic text and a crowned Christ waiting in glory. A nun kneeling at the bottom may have commissioned the print. She envisions a torturous journey up the steep incline, her twelve-step program advocating different Christian virtues: faith, generosity, modesty, constancy, justice, strength, will, patience, obedience, humility and at long last, divinity.
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Currently Off View
- Prints and Drawings
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Artist
- Baccio Baldini
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Title
- The Holy Mountain, folio 3 from The Holy Mountain (Monte Sancto di Dio)
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Origin
- Italy
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Date
- Made 1477
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Medium
- Engraving in black with letterpress on verso, on ivory laid paper
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Dimensions
- 257 x 185 mm (plate); 275 x 189 mm (sheet)
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Credit Line
- Restricted gift of the Blum-Kovler Foundation
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Reference Number
- 1968.419
Extended information about this artwork
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