Young Hare by Albrecht Durer Placemat

Young Hare by Albrecht Durer, 1502, is a detailed, naturalistic watercolor and gouache drawing of a young rabbit. Among the first artists to paint details of landscape and nature, here Durer’s precise brush captures the hare’s patterns of fur growth and coloration so vividly that the animal appears it could move. Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) was a German painter of the Northern Renaissance whose work as an engraver, printmaker, mathematician and theorist secured his reputation as one of the greatest artists of Europe. His many paintings, portraits, altarpieces, watercolors, and engravings were the first in the Northern Renaissance to use classical motifs from antiquity and the Italian Renaissance. Durer’s unparalleled skill in drawing and engraving as well as mastery of perspective allowed him rapid execution of a range of motifs which elicit universal admiration to this day.