The Knight and the Lansquenet (B. 131; M., Holl. 265)

Unlike with Hercules (lot 23), Dürer did not assist us by giving this woodcut a title, and its iconography still remains a riddle. As Rainer Schoch has rightly observed, the rider is in fact not a knight, as the traditional title suggests. He is not dressed in armour but in princely attire and his horse is luxuriously equipped, with plumes and a fine saddle-cloth. The scene has been read as 'Saul on his way to Damaskus' or 'David fleeing from Saul', but it really offers too little information to substantiate such biblical interpretations. An anonymous painting of the early 16th century now in Nuremberg shows the same two figures, clearly taken from Dürer's woodcut, with Death himself on their heals. This interpretation would make the present woodcut an early precursor of the famous engraving of the Knight, Death and Devil. The princely rider and his footman are clearly on the run, yet we shall never know who they are - fleeing from an enemy we shall never see.