JEWELLERY, DECORATIVE & FINE ARTS AUCTION Tuesday, 26 April 2022 - 10:00 AM start
Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) Landscape with Cannon
Lot Details
(Die Numberger Feldschlange The Nuremberg Field-Serpent), etching with monogram and date 1518, A posthumous printing on laid paper with Bergisch Gladbach (Germany) watermark. Plate size 218 x 324mm, sheet size 310 x 423mm. Light browning and foxing. Czech antiquarian bookstore label verso. Provenance: Prof. Cedric Herbert Hassall FRS (1919 –2017), gifted to his Auckland Grammar student and friend Ted Wilson (Associate, Kelliher Art Trust). The last and largest of only six iron etchings Dürer made in his career, and one of the earliest landscape etchings in art history. The panoramic landscape is partly based on a drawing he took of the Franconian village of Eschenau, with the Lindelberg hill in the background. The costume of the foremost figure on the right derives from a drawing of three foreigners, traditionally identified as Turks, Dürer made in Venice, after a painting by Gentile Bellini. In addition, the cannon, though an outdated model from 1480, gives suggestions of the Turkish threat to Christian Europe around the time the etching was made. Early etchings were made on iron plates rather than copper, however being sensitive to the environment and tending to rust quickly they fell from favour. Labelled: Knihkupectví Antikvariát, Miloslav Straka, Praha, Na Příkopě 12, pasáž Černá růže
