Albrecht Dürer

Lots 79-89 belong to a series of twenty woodcuts by Dürer devoted to episodes from the life of the Virgin Mary. The majority of the blocks date from the years 1502-05. However, it was not until 1510-11 that the final two plates and the title page were added. The complete book The Life of the Virgin was finally published in 1511 with Latin text by the Benedictine monk Benedictus Chelidonius from Nuremberg. Dürer dedicated it to Caritas Pirckheimer, sister of his great friend Willibald and abbess of the convent of Saint Clara in Nuremberg, and it was probably for the educated and refined women in the religious houses that the book was primarily intended. As with Dürer's other great cycles of woodcuts, The Apocalypse, Large Passion and Small Passion, impressions from the individual blocks were printed and sold as the blocks were completed, in some cases many years before publication. These early impressions, before the text was added on the reverse, are the rarest and most sought after, as the woodblocks are at their sharpest, before any cracking or damage to affect the integrity of the image. A number of fine early proofs before text are included in this collection.