Elizabeth Harvey-Lee

ALBRECHT DURER (1471-1528)
Portrait of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (c. 1520 to c. 1550 Germany)

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ALBRECHT DURER (1471-1528)

Lettered with the title.

Ex collection The Dukes of Arenberg (Lugt 567)

Generally in good condition.
Trimmed just outside the borderline, with thread margins. A few printing creases, a central horizontal drying fold, a couple of repairs.

Woodcut, after 1519.
(Reference Hollstein 255 block3 ii/iii; Bartsch 154)
Very good impression, in the second state of three. Before the crack in the block, and before Durer's monogram.
Watermark: Coat of Arms.
Durer visited Augsburg in 1518 to receive ratification of the pension of a hundred florins which Maximilian had granted him three years previously. While there he drew the Holy Roman Emperor's portrait. Durer annotated his drawing "This is the Emperor Maximilian, who I, Albrecht Durer, portrayed at Augsburg in his little cabinet, high up in the palace, in the year reckoned 1518...". The image became iconic through the four woodcuts based on it. The first block may have been cut in Maximilian's lifetime, but the subsequent blocks were cut as commemorative images after his death in 1519.