St. Anthony Reading
Details
Bartsch 58; Meder 51 a (from d); Schoch/Mende/Scherbaum 87 a (from d).
Descrizione
A superb lifetime impression, with fine vertical wiping scratches in the sky, in the top corners and at the right edge, the mountain line at the left edge crisp and unbroken. Trimmed to the platemarks, with a filet of margin outside the borderlines. The sheet was created together with six small-format engravings before Dürer’s journey to the Netherlands. It does not depict the popular temptation of St Anthony in the desert, but rather, outside the pictorial tradition of the late Middle Ages, the hermit Anthony, crouching by the wayside outside the city and reading intently in a book. He symbolises the Vita contemplativa. The double cross with the little bell, which the lepers wore as a warning, is his only attribute and points to his charitable work in the city’s septic tanks. Close enough to touch and as clear as an architectural model, the fortified town on the hill forms the second main accent of the sheet. The cityscape transferred from the castle is a combination of Nuremberg, Trentino and Innsbruck motifs and goes back to now lost drawings from Dürer’s first trip to Italy. The slender cross towers above the cityscape and mediates between the foreground and background. It symbolises the work of St Anthony beyond the city limits. Apart from his nose and beard, hands and feet, St Anthony disappears completely into the monk’s habit. The compact figure of the saint, conceived as a geometric figure, conveys an expression of complete introspection and deep inner contemplation, just like the depiction of ‘Jerome in a case’. Like the latter, Antony is depicted in harmony with his surroundings. The intricate urban landscape on the hill is built up behind the saint as an ‘echo and magnification’ of his figure. The variety of forms of the cubes is in harmonious analogy to the calm and closed fabric cover of the habit. It was precisely this interweaving of pictorial space and pictorial statement as well as of form and content that was aimed at the taste of the humanists and made the image of the saint interesting for the educated as well.” (Anna Scherbaum, in: Schoch/Mende/Scherbaum, vol. I, p. 214f.) According to Mende, the sheet may have served as a New Year’s greeting, combined with wishes for a long life. – A tiny, barely perceptible closed hole at the top of a tower in the cityscape. Paper slightly roughened on the reverse in the lower right corner due to former mounting. In very good condition.
Rarely so beautiful!
* Tutte le informazioni includono la commissione a carico dell'acquirente (27%) senza IVA e senza garanzia. Salvo errori.
** Tutte le informazioni più la commissione a carico dell'acquirente e l'IVA e senza garanzia. Salvo errori.
*** Con riserva: L'offerta è stata accettata al di sotto del limite. L'acquisizione dell'opera potrebbe essere ancora possibile nella nostra vendita post-asta.
R = Le opere d'arte regolarmente tassate
N = Opere d'arte soggette a tassazione differenziata e provenienti da un paese non UE
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