Albrecht Drer

The Virgin and Child with a Monkey

细节

Albrecht Drer
The Virgin and Child with a Monkey
engraving, 1498, a fine, black Meder a impression, richly inked and with strong contrasts, a little slipped at the upper left corner, with a narrow margin at the bottom, otherwise with thread margins or trimmed on or fractionally within the platemark, a pale brown stain in the sky upper right, tiny skilful repairs mainly at the sheet edges
S. 190 x 121mm.

出版

Bartsch 42; Meder, Hollstein 30

拍品专文

A comparison between this work and Drer's earlier The Holy Family with a Butterfly (1495) reveals the artist's progression both in style and composition. The compositional clarity that he achieves in the later engraving displays how he had developed in technique just in the space of a few years. Equally, the use of numerous short strokes has been replaced by a clearer and more confident engraved line, which varies in depth, enhancing the modelling of form.

The subject matter of the Madonna of Humility where the Virgin is positioned close up in the foreground in an outdoor setting derives clearly from Drer's studies in Italian art while in Venice in 1494-5. The serene background and the grouping of the figures are evocative of Leonardo's oeuvre.