ALBRECHT DÜRER

Nürnberg 1471-1528 Nürnberg

Löwenwappen mit dem Hahn, about 1500-1502

Coat of Arms with Lion and Rooster

Engraving: 184 x 118 mm.; 7 3/16 x 4 5/8 inches

Watermark: Unidentifiable watermark

References: Bartsch 100; Meder 97a (from g)

Notes:

1. A very good impression with the horizontal scratches to lower left corresponding to Meder’s "a" quality. Traces of old hinges, in corner areas. Otherwise in good condition.

2. Edouard Flechsig (Albrecht Dürer, sein Leben und seine künstlerische Entwicklung, Berlin, 1928: vol. I, p. 195) notes this engraving as the first where Dürer used a tiny triangle instead of a horizontal line as the base for the "A" of the monogram. Remarking that Dürer only began dating his engravings after 1503, Flechsig dates this work around 1500 (ref. above,

Vol. I, p. 445). Erwin Panofsky (Albrecht Dürer, Princeton, 1943: no. 207), on the other hand, dates this engraving a bit later, to 1502-1503 and feels that the iconography of this work may have been suggested by the belief that the rooster is the only animal capable of frightening a lion (reference above: vol. I, p. 83).

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