Object Image

Melencolia I

The winged figure in Melencolia I has inspired many readings over its long history, although her ties to mathematical knowledge are often highlighted. Many of her accoutrements are borrowed from medieval and Renaissance allegories of geometry that personify it as a woman working at a table surrounded by tools. Perhaps most notably, a truncated rhombohedron looms large in the middle distance, dividing the foreground—a scene replete with the detritus of measurement—from the limitless background of a placid sea that vanishes into the horizon, presumably the type of natural territory the geometer purports to measure.

Credit: Fletcher Fund, 1919...

1514
Engraving; second state
24.3 x 18.9cm
19.73.85
Image and text © Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019

Where you'll find this

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Permanent collection