Landscape with Spruce

The large tree is shown against a deep-blue sky. Drawn in brown pen and green body colour, its hanging branches seem to undulate in the breeze in a captivating picture of natural beauty. While depictions of nature are for us a familiar and commonplace feature of art, the theme was something of a novelty at the time when Altdorf’s drawing was created in around 1522. The fact that only a few examples of his landscape etchings and drawings have survived is a likely indication of their popularity, which in turn meant they were probably used as wall decorations.