MASTER ES A Lady Holding a Helmet and an Empty Shield.
Engraving, circa 1460. 152x110 mm; 6x4 3/8 inches. First state (of 2), before the monogram and date upper right. Large Gothic letter P watermark (similar to Briquet 8553, which dates to around 1484). Ex-collection Herzogliches Museum zu Gotha, this impression cited by Lehrs. The contours lightly pricked for transfer, visible mainly on the verso and with penetrating light, trimmed on the plate mark with thread margins outside the black border line. A very good impression of this extremely scarce, early print.
Another impression of this print is in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (see Geisberg, illustration number 62). A Master ES engraving with Gotha Museum provenance sold at Kornfeld, Bern, fall 2003, lot 3.
Lehrs lists only 6 impressions of this engraving, all of which are in public collections. The Print Council of America does not list any impressions of this engraving in American public collections. According to Shestack, "Of the 317 universally accepted ES engravings, 50 exist in only 2 known examples and 95 are unique." (Shestack, Fifteenth Century Engravings of Northern Europe, Washington, DC, 1968, p. 3). Bartsch 171; Lehrs 224.
