Two Musicians

Two Musicians: Albrecht Durer

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Albrecht Durer Oil Painting - Two Musicians

Keywords: Musicians

Work Overview: Two Musicians
Albrecht Dürer
c. 1504
Oil on panel
94 x 51 cm
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne

The panel is a wing of the Jabach Altarpiece, named after one of its previous owners. Originally, however, it was commissioned by Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony. Another panel in Frankfurt, depicting Job and his wife, belongs to this altar, too. It is conceivable that these two pictures are the results of sawing a larger one in two. Even though their conditions differ, it is clearly visible that the background and the horizon in both pictures match, and portions of the clothes of Job's wife may be found in the picture of the two musicians. There is even a sixteenth-century drawing which shows the two paintings as one composition. The two pictures together may have constituted the centre panel of a Job altar commissioned by Frederick the Wise to commemorate the plague which ravaged the German lands in 1503.

It should be noted that there are scholars who have proposed that these two pictures used to form the two wing-panels of a triptych showing the Adoration of the Magi (now in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence).

The altar, besides depicting Job as the patron saint of people suffering skin diseases, also points to his connection with music. On the first part of the painting we see the suffering Job cowering on a refuse heap while his wife drenches him with water. On the second part, the musicians are certainly the representatives of healing music. (The young drummer bears striking resemblance to the painter). According to the medieval melotherapy, Job, who was devoted to music when he was healthy, should recover upon hearing the melody.

The presence of a wind instrument, a type of trumpet, may suggest another association. In praise of the instruments, St Augustine likened the brazen tone of the trumpet to the steadfastness of Job.

For whom were they playing, the musicians Albrecht Dürer portrays here? This panel is the outside of the right-hand wing of a triptych and has a pair currently in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, on which is depicted the figure of Job, weighed down by sickness and suffering. His faith is being sorely tested by the assaults of the Devil. Thus his herd has been stolen, for example (you can see the rustlers at work in the background of the Cologne panel).

The wing in the Städel Museum shows Job’s wife pouring water over her melancholic husband. The art historian Bodo Brinkmann suggested some time ago that this gesture was not one of scorn, as it had usually been seen, but rather a therapeutic measure. The triptych was probably once set up in the chapel of an early spa, known as the Hiobsbad (Job’s Bath), near Annaberg in Saxony.

The two musicians are also trying to comfort the sick Job. They are seeking to console him with their cheerful music, the rousing sound of the pipe and the stirring rhythm of the drum. Interestingly, the facial features of the drummer are Dürer’s own. Did he see himself in a similar role as painter?

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Albrecht Durer

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