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Lot Essay
The largest of all Dürer's engravings, Saint Eustace has always been regarded as one of his greatest. Dürer himself considered this early work something of a show-piece and took it with him on his journey to the Netherlands in 1521. In his travel diary he mentions six occasions of selling or presenting it to potential patrons.
According to the legend, a Roman soldier called Placidas saw a vision of the crucified Christ appear between the antlers of a stag he was hunting. Upon hearing God's voice spoken by the animal, 'O Placidas, why pursuest thou me?', he fell on his knees, was converted and baptized with the name Eustace. In Dürer's engraving the saint is shown kneeling on the banks of a stream, transfixed by his vision, while his horse and hounds wait patiently for their master. The animals are depicted with delightful naturalism, as is the woodland vegetation, the gnarled and splintered tree trunk, and the view in the distance of a hill surmounted by a castle, with a murmuration of starlings spiraling around its castellated turrets. This display of technical virtuosity may have been Dürer's counter to the hotly contested view prevalent in the 16th century that sculpture was superior to painting due to its capacity to show the figure three-dimensionally. Dürer's depiction of the natural world in Saint Eustace in such exquisite detail - and in the case of the dogs from different sides at once - was a provocative claim for the parity of the 'flat arts'. One of the most admired and best loved elements in Dürer's whole graphic oeuvre are indeed the greyhounds in the foreground, which prompted Vasari's effusive description of the engraving as 'amazing, and particularly for the beauty of some dogs in various attitudes, which could not be more perfect'.
Although Saint Eustace, the patron saint of huntsmen, was enormously popular in Northern Europe at this time, it is intriguing to think that Dürer may have seen Pisanello's famous painting of the subject (circa 1438-42) - or a version of it - during his first journey to Venice in 1494-95. The small panel, now at the National Gallery in London, is significantly reduced in height, but a later copy at the Fondazione Cini in Venice presumably shows the original composition, taller and with a mountainous landscape in the background.
Fine impressions of Saint Eustace, such as the present one, have always ranked amongst the most highly-prized possessions of a print collector. Although the composition of this magnificent print still has the charm and immediacy of Dürer's 'gothic' engravings of the 1490s, the exquisite depiction of details and textures anticipates the technical perfection of the artist's Meisterstiche of 1513-14 (see lots 334 & 341). The fact that the saint, at the moment of his epiphany and conversion, seems to levitate rather than kneel on the ground, only adds to the mysterious and enchanting air of the scene.
According to the legend, a Roman soldier called Placidas saw a vision of the crucified Christ appear between the antlers of a stag he was hunting. Upon hearing God's voice spoken by the animal, 'O Placidas, why pursuest thou me?', he fell on his knees, was converted and baptized with the name Eustace. In Dürer's engraving the saint is shown kneeling on the banks of a stream, transfixed by his vision, while his horse and hounds wait patiently for their master. The animals are depicted with delightful naturalism, as is the woodland vegetation, the gnarled and splintered tree trunk, and the view in the distance of a hill surmounted by a castle, with a murmuration of starlings spiraling around its castellated turrets. This display of technical virtuosity may have been Dürer's counter to the hotly contested view prevalent in the 16th century that sculpture was superior to painting due to its capacity to show the figure three-dimensionally. Dürer's depiction of the natural world in Saint Eustace in such exquisite detail - and in the case of the dogs from different sides at once - was a provocative claim for the parity of the 'flat arts'. One of the most admired and best loved elements in Dürer's whole graphic oeuvre are indeed the greyhounds in the foreground, which prompted Vasari's effusive description of the engraving as 'amazing, and particularly for the beauty of some dogs in various attitudes, which could not be more perfect'.
Although Saint Eustace, the patron saint of huntsmen, was enormously popular in Northern Europe at this time, it is intriguing to think that Dürer may have seen Pisanello's famous painting of the subject (circa 1438-42) - or a version of it - during his first journey to Venice in 1494-95. The small panel, now at the National Gallery in London, is significantly reduced in height, but a later copy at the Fondazione Cini in Venice presumably shows the original composition, taller and with a mountainous landscape in the background.
Fine impressions of Saint Eustace, such as the present one, have always ranked amongst the most highly-prized possessions of a print collector. Although the composition of this magnificent print still has the charm and immediacy of Dürer's 'gothic' engravings of the 1490s, the exquisite depiction of details and textures anticipates the technical perfection of the artist's Meisterstiche of 1513-14 (see lots 334 & 341). The fact that the saint, at the moment of his epiphany and conversion, seems to levitate rather than kneel on the ground, only adds to the mysterious and enchanting air of the scene.