?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
ALBRECHT DÜRER Erasmus of Rotterdam.
Engraving, 1526. 251x193 mm; 10x7 1/2 inches, narrow margins. A superb, well-inked, crisp, dark and early Meder a-b impression with very strong contrasts and no sign of wear. Crowned coat-of-arms with fleur-de-lys, letter "L" and attached letter "b" watermark (Meder 314, which he cites for the earliest impressions of this subject). A superb impression with contrasts and all the subtle tonal nuances distinct; extremely scarce in this early state.
Dürer met the famed humanist Desiderius Erasmus (1467-1536) on several occasions during his trip to the Low Countries in 1520-21 and made portrait drawings of the scholar, as Erasmus was eager to have Dürer paint his portrait. On January 8, 1525, he wrote to his friend (and Dürer's friend since childhood), the humanist Willibald Pirkheimer, whom Dürer had made an engraved portrait of in 1524 (Bartsch 106), "I have received your portrait. I wish that I too could be portrayed by Dürer. Why not by such an artist? But how can it be accomplished? He started my portrait in charcoal at Brussels, but I imagine that I have been long put aside. If he could do it from my medal and from memory, let him do what he has done for you."
Pirkheimer likely encouraged Dürer to complete the portrait of Erasmus. On July 30, 1526, Erasmus wrote to Pirkheimer, grateful albeit perhaps disengenously, "I wonder how I shall show Dürer my gratitude, which he deserves eternally. It is not surprising that this picture does not correspond exactly to my appearance. I no longer look the same as five years ago."
The tablet to Erasmus' left identifies the sitter (upper 3 lines), with the date and artist's monogram (lower 2 lines). The Greek inscription in between reads to: "His writings present a better picture of the man than this portrait."
Property of The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, sold to benefit the acquisitions fund. Bartsch 107; Meder 105.
