1551
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Dancing Couple is a 1551 ink by Heinrich Aldegrever, a Northern Renaissance work, held at National Gallery of Art.
This sketch shows two people dancing closely together. Their clothes look heavy and old-fashioned, with lots of folds and layers. The man holds a staff, and both are mid-motion, almost like they’re spinning. The lines are all made by scratching into metal—a method called engraving. The shadows and textures come from tiny parallel lines packed together. Next, look up cross-hatching to see how artists build depth with lines like this.
Heinrich Aldegrever or Aldegraf was a German painter and engraver. He was one of the "Little Masters", the group of German artists making small old master prints in the generation after Albrecht Dürer.
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