Jael Killing Sisera

Executed as a woodcut, the work relies on incised lines cut into a wooden block, producing bold contours and deep, uniform blacks. Van Leyden’s handling of hatching and cross‑hatching creates a sense of volume and movement despite the medium’s limited tonal range. The composition’s tight framing and energetic line quality reflect the artist’s contribution to the evolution of Dutch print techniques in the early sixteenth century.

Created in 1518, the print belongs to the early phase of Lucas van Leyden’s career, when he was establishing a reputation for both painting and printmaking. It circulated among collectors of religious imagery in the Low Countries and later entered museum collections as an example of early Netherlandish narrative woodcuts. Its survival in several impressions attests to the durability of the medium and the work’s continued scholarly interest.