Page 34 - Swann Galleries - Old Master Through Modern Prints - Sale 2312 - May 1, 2013
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ALBRECHT DÜRER
Melencolia I
.
Engraving, 1514. 240x187 mm; 9
1
/
2
x7 inches. A superb, dark, richly-inked Meder II a
impression, with the number “9” corrected in the third row of the number square upper
right, with strong contrasts and no sign of wear, with the face dark and all the finest details
distinct.Trimmed on the plate mark with the border line preserved all around.
Durer’s
Melencolia I
,
St. Jerome in his Study
and
Knight, Death and the Devil
, all from 1514
and related in size, style and technical complexity, have been considered his master
engravings (or
meisterstiche
) since their creation nearly 500 years ago. Replete with symbols
(some understood and some unknown) and brimming with psychological content,
Melencolia I
is perhaps the most heavily studied and written about image in the history of
art next to Leonardo daVinci’s
Mona Lisa
.
Melencolia I
has been described as representing the contemplative life (as opposed to the
active life of
Knight, Death and the Devil
), and more specifically the melancholic pitfalls of
an overly intellectual, creative temperament, with the large seated figure in the engraving
possibly an allegory of the artist himself.
Certainly an event that shaped Dürer’s life and his outlook during this period was the
illness and ultimate death of his mother on May 16, 1514.Whatever part this played in his
creation of
Melencolia I
, it is clear from his diary entries and a moving charcoal portrait of
his mother from 1514 (now in the Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen, Berlin), in
which he detailed her illness, that her death weighed heavily on his mind leading up to
and during the creation of this engraving.
While modern scholars often group Dürer’s three master engravings from 1514 together,
suggesting they were conceived as a set by the artist and comercially offered as such, this was
evidently not the artist’s intent (though the Roman numeral “I” in the title of the current work
also suggests Dürer had a series in mind).He often sold and presented impressions of
Melencolia
I
and
St. Jerome in his Study
together, though this is likely due to their highly recognized
importance even during his life and their contemporaneousness. Bartsch 74; Meder 75.
[80,000/120,000]
