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Landscape with Cannon

Artist Albrecht Dürer (German, May 21, 1471–April 6, 1528)
Title Landscape with Cannon (Landschaft mit Kanone)
Date 1518
Medium Etching on paper
Dimensions Image: 8 9/16 × 12 11/16 in. (21.7 × 32.2 cm)
Sheet: 8 5/8 × 12 9/16 in. (21.9 × 31.9 cm)
Credit Line Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University
Accession Number 80.70.1

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About this Work

Situated on the outskirts of a German village is an aging cannon, an obsolete model from the fifteenth century that has sparked curiosity among the group of men seen touring the countryside. Landscape with Cannon is one of just six etchings Albrecht Dürer made in the late 1510s. It is often regarded as an early precursor to the rich tradition of etched landscapes that would later thrive in the Netherlands. Although he would soon abandon the medium for reasons that remain unclear, Dürer’s etchings were among some of his most daring and experimental compositions in the print medium.
Unlike Dürer, Hieronymus Hopfer made this rapidly evolving medium the focus of a successful printmaking career. His copy of Dürer’s Cannon possesses a clarity and bright crispness of line that distinguishes it from its smaller prototype. Hopfer’s virtuosity with the etching needle is of course one reason for this, but etching on copper also had several advantages over working on iron. Unlike iron, copperplates did not rust and leave traces behind on paper that can visibly mar the surface. They were also softer, producing results that were typically sharper and easier to control.


1980, accessioned into the Indiana University Art Museum collection

before 1936, part of the Fine Arts Collection, Fine Arts Department, Indiana University (per 1936 inventory, FA #451)

Provenance: former Fine Arts Collection. An entry for this and 80.70.2 was found in the leger (vol. 1) and noted as “1980 – 80.70 - Thimme Find Prints.” This entry is misattributed as the registrar did not know about the history of the Fine Arts Collection. It has a fine arts number, 451, noted on the verso (see Front Card -> Inscriptions and Other -> Alternate Number in TMS) and, therefore, is from the old Fine Arts Collection. - per Curator, Nan Brewer, 2018.


Provenance research is ongoing for this and many other items in the Eskenazi Museum of Art permanent collection. For more information about the provenance of this artwork, please contact the department curator with specific questions.

July 1–December 19, 2021, "Albrecht Dürer: Apocalypse and Other Masterworks from Indiana University Collections," Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

November 1–December 22, 1996, “Art in the Original: Selections from the Early Fine Arts Collection,” Hexagon Gallery, Indiana Univeristy Art Museum, Bloomington, IN

Publisher Albrecht Dürer (German, May 21, 1471–April 6, 1528)

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"Landscape with Cannon | Collections Online." Collections Online. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2024. https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/browse/object.php?number=80.70.1