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| Image | Sale date | Auction house | Location | Sale name | Lot No. | Estimate | Price Sold | Condition | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
May 15, 2015 | Van Ham | Cologne | Alte Kunst | 502 | $****** - ****** | The Virgin and the Child |
sculpture
14.7 x 10.1 cm (5.79 x 3.98 in)
copper engraving
Signed and dated in the plate: AD 1520, watermark, Verso: On the border cardboard there is a label of C.G. Boerner with typewritten information about the copper engraving
Antiquarian Art Shop C.G. Boerner, Düsseldorf - Boerner auction in the 30s - since then private collection, Cologne Mary is sitting in a broad landscape, holding the sleeping and swaddled Child in her arms. Her head is crowned by a nimbus and over her sober undergarment with puffy, almost mannered sleeves, she wears a heavy, fur-lined dress which shows at the lower seam. The simple fur collar is held together by a brooch. The Blessed Mother is sitting on a cushion, which is lying on a simple stone cuboid. The sleeping Christ Child is swaddeled from head to toe and by the means of the cross nimbus his later destiny of being the saviour of mankind is already announced. Mary's serious facial expression can be understood in the same way. The motif of the Blessed Mother worrying about her sleeping Child comes from Italy, where it was depicted repeatedly by Bellini. The landscape in the background is not depicted in much detail, nevertheless it is certainly a riverside with tiny townscapes. A small stone plate, carrying Albrecht Dürer's initials as well as the year 1520, is leaning on the stone step in the left foreground. The entire depiction is worked with extreme precision and delicacy. The vedute can hardly be seen with unaided eye. Albrecht Dürer shows all his artistic genius: starting from the notches over the outlines, from parallel and cross-hatching to dotted and dashed lines. He adds dramatic features to this harmonic and peaceful scene by confronting very light and partly graphically spared parts with sections that show dense cross-hatching. One might be willing to also refer these dramatic elements to the newborn child's future. From an artistic point of view it is precisely the deliberate depiction with opposites on the base of a great, technical precision that characterise the work of Albrecht Dürer. This sheet is an individual sheet in the contrary to his great later cycles and it belongs to the late work of the master. Precise print, deep of color. In the paper the watermark "Krüglein" in the right center is clearly recogniosable. Verso there is a round stamp with an emblem and the inscription "Fürstl. Waldburg Wolfegg'sches Kupferstichkabinet", various notes in pencil, amongst others B.38 (Bartsch), as well as small remains of a former mounting in the corners and in the upper middle. Mounted with adhesive tape verso on the right upper and lower margin. In the Cologne Wallraf-Richartz-Museum there are four more prints of this motif. A study of Mary's head can be seen in the Kunsthalle in Hamburg. 1 cf. Großmann 2001, p. 226f. Catalogue raisonnés: Hüsgen 1778, 41
Bartsch 1808, 38
Heller 1827, 585, Hausmann 1861, 38
Meder 1932, 40
Hollstein 1962, 40. Lit.: Großmann, Ulrich (ed.), Albrecht Dürer, Das Druckgraphische Werk. Kupferstiche Eisenradierungen und Kaltnadelblätter, bearb. von Schoch, Rainer, Mende, Matthias, Scherbaum, Anna, Vol. 1, Munich London New York 2001, p. 226f. with additional literature
