Albrecht Dürer
The Temptation of the Idle Man (The Doctor’s Dream)
Details
Bartsch 94; Meder 83 I c (von II); Schoch/Mende/Scherbaum 19 I c (von II).
Description
A very fine, black impression, the bonnet ornament very beautifully strong and clearly drawn. With the black horizontal line at the bottom of the tree trunk.
The innocuous title “The Walk” conceals far more than a gallant love scene: the theme of love and death – a favourite subject of the young Dürer – is addressed here in a particularly sensitive way. The young cavalier turns with an inviting gesture to his older companion, who can be identified as married by her bonnet and who realises at this moment the risks of his urgent courtship. She hesitantly pauses in her stride and looks down at the ground. Behind a tree, not visible to either of them, death lurks with a threatening hourglass raised – a clear indication of the transience of love’s happiness (R. Schoch). Trimmed to the image. – Faint brown staining verso. The upper and lower margins carefully replaced and inconspicuously redrawn. Small repairs to the left and right edges, otherwise in good condition.
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