Live Auction 7375The Genius of the German Renaissance: Prints by Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Lot 116

Albrecht Dürer

The Virgin with the swaddled Child (B. 38; M., Holl. 40; S.M.S. 91)

Closed4 December 2007

Price Realised

GBP 12,500

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Albrecht Dürer
The Virgin with the swaddled Child (B. 38; M., Holl. 40; S.M.S. 91)
engraving, 1520, a fine Meder a impression, printing with the selectively wiped tone characteristic of early impressions, the tone softening the lines radiating at the top, without watermark, with 3-4 mm. margins on all sides, in excellent condition
P. 142 x 96 mm., S. 148 x 101 mm.

P. Davidsohn (L. 654); C. G. Boerner, Leipzig, 3 - 8 May 1920, lot 1457 (8,000 Mk.).
With P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London.
This impression cited in Hollstein's list of sales.

Specialist note

Dürer's treatment of the present work is not quite as spare as the Virgin nursing the Child (lot 115). He has opened up the image and hinted at a landscape in the background, and included some detail, such as the cushion and the stony ground. He did however keep the overall darkness of the image whilst intensifying the effect of the the Virgin's halo by placing her head in the centre of the sky, and by treating the radiating lines even more systematically, as if the entire sky was illuminated by her radiance.