Live Auction 2778Albrecht Durer: Masterpieces from a Private Collection
Albrecht Dürer
Lot 29

Albrecht Dürer

Coat of Arms with a Lion and a Cock (B. 100; M., Holl. 97; S.M.S. 35)

Closed29 January 2013

Price Realised

USD 25,000

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Albrecht Dürer
Coat of Arms with a Lion and a Cock
(B. 100; M., Holl. 97; S.M.S. 35)
engraving, circa 1502-3, watermark High Crown (M. 20), a very fine, rich and tonal Meder a impression, trimmed on or just inside the platemark, retaining a fillet of blank paper outside the borderline below and in places elsewhere, a small red crayon mark in the scrolls at right, a few small thin spots, otherwise in very good condition
S. 7 5/16 x 4 5/8 in. (185 x 118 mm.)

Count Antoine Seilern (1901-1978), Surrey and London (not in Lugt and without mark), Christie's, London, Albrecht Dürer - Prints from the Collection of the Late Count Antoine Seilern, 8 July 1998, lot 24 (£11,000).

Specialist note

Attempts to identify this coat of arms and link it to a particular family have failed and so we assume it is an invention, although its various elements, the shield with the rampant lion, the helmet, the scrollwork and the cock do comply with the heraldic tradition. Dürer may have created it in order to attract commissions for similar designs. The scrollwork and the shining helmet also gave him the opportunity to display his technical skills as an engraver, shown to even greater effect in Coat of Arms with a Skull (see Lot 24).