SOLD
ALBRECHT DURER
Nürnberg 1471-1528 Nürnberg
Der verlorene Sohn, about 1496
The Prodigal Son
Engraving
248 x 190 mm.; 9 3/4 x 7 3/8 inches
Watermark:
Gotisches P (M. 322). Meder dates the use of this paper from about 1500 to 1527 and therefore from the lifetime of Dürer.
Provenance:
F. von Hagens (Lugt 1052a)
André Jean Hachette, Paris (Lugt 132, but mark reduced to 5 mm.)
Reference:
Meder 28c
Notes:
1. A fine, early, lifetime impression of one of Dürer’s most important engravings.
2. This scene with
The Prodigal Son is from a parable in the New Testament (Luke 15/
11-24 ), describing the prodigal son when he had been abased to be in the fields
"to feed the swine". Panofsky (Erwin Panofsky, Albrecht Dürer, Princeton
University Press, 1971 edition: p. 76) notes that in this work, Dürer made two
major icono- graphical changes. First, the scene is not staged in the fields,
but rather in a farmyard, creating "an atmosphere of genuine, yet intensely
poetic rusticity". This, according to Panofsky (taking a phrase from Giorgio
Vasari’s description of this same work), "...is balanced by an increase in
pathos : the prodigal son no longer stands by the swine with mournful composure,
but has gone to his knees in their very midst, wringing his hands in bitter
remorse". At the same time that the son "abases himself to the level of beasts,
he raises his eyes and his thoughts to the heaven of God".
3. One former owner of this work was the collector Franz von Hagens (1817-1899) who was born in Düsseldorf, but lived in Dresden. With particular interest in Dürer and Rembrandt, he brought together one of the great nineteenth century collections of old master prints.
The other collector indicated, André-Jean Hachette, was born in Paris in 1873. Hachette was a passionate collector of prints, with particular interest in the fifteenth and sixteen centuries. This work was part of the Hachette Collection, sold in Paris on June 11, 1953 (lot no. 6).