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Lot Essay
This fine and early impression of Dürer's most famous print was once part of the legendary collection of Earl Spencer, until its sale at Christie's in London almost one hundred years ago. The collection was probably founded by The Honorable John Spencer (1708-1746). Many works in the collection came from Sarah Duchess of Marlborough (1660-1744), who had been a regular client of the famous Paris print dealer Pierre Mariette (1634–1716). Soon after the Spencer sale at Christie’s in 1919, probably around 1925, the print was acquired by Dr. William Sargent Ladd (1887-1949), Dean of Cornell University Medical College, New York, and grandson of the former Mayor of Oregon and philanthropist William Sargent Ladd (1826-1893).
Melencolia I is the most discussed and debated image in the pantheon of Western art. The rich symbolism that still remains open to interpretation embodies the complexity of humanist thought in the Renaissance period. This work is one of the artist’s three so-called Meisterstiche (‘master engravings’), created between 1513-1514, which are widely considered the pinnacle of the artist’s mastery of the graphic medium. It is thought that the three engravings, Melencolia I, Death, Knight and the Devil and Saint Jerome in his Study each represent one of the three forms of virtuous living, intellectual, moral and theological, as outlined in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae (written circa 1265–1274 but published in 1485). In Dürer's time, the nature of a virtuous life, and by extension of the ideal ‘Renaissance man’, was a popular topic of conversation in literary and artistic circles. Dürer himself was surrounded and no doubt inspired by the Nuremberg humanists, above all by his friend Willibald Pirckheimer. Treatises such as Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ (1513) and Castiglione’s ‘The Courtier’ (1528) give testimony of this culture and the moral debates of the time.
The melancholic temperament was associated with intellectual creativity and as such this depiction has been understood to be an allegorical self-portrait. Indeed, it has been suggested that the ‘I’ of the title Melencolia I refers to Cornelius Agrippa’s hierarchy of the Melancholic temperament, with ‘imagination’ ranking above ‘mind’ and ‘reason’. The winged figure can thus be taken to be an allegory of artistic melancholy and the tools of measurement in the image refer to the artist’s examination of the natural world.
One of the other competing theories identifies the central figure as Lucifer, the best and brightest of the angels, contemplating his rebellion. Having been expelled from Heaven and condemned to the material world, represented by the instruments pertinent to the material world which surround him, he sits considering his fate. His act of defiance marks the beginning of sadness for mankind. According to this interpretation, the star and the rainbow on the horizon signify hope for mankind.
“[Dürer] executed some copper-plates that astonished the world. He set himself to make an engraving…of a figure of Melancholy, with all the instruments that reduce all who use them…to a melancholy humour; and in this he succeeded so well, that it would not be possible to do more delicate engraving with the burin.”
Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, 1550, translated by Gaston de Vere, The Medici Society, London 1912-14, volume VI, p. 95.
Melencolia I is the most discussed and debated image in the pantheon of Western art. The rich symbolism that still remains open to interpretation embodies the complexity of humanist thought in the Renaissance period. This work is one of the artist’s three so-called Meisterstiche (‘master engravings’), created between 1513-1514, which are widely considered the pinnacle of the artist’s mastery of the graphic medium. It is thought that the three engravings, Melencolia I, Death, Knight and the Devil and Saint Jerome in his Study each represent one of the three forms of virtuous living, intellectual, moral and theological, as outlined in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae (written circa 1265–1274 but published in 1485). In Dürer's time, the nature of a virtuous life, and by extension of the ideal ‘Renaissance man’, was a popular topic of conversation in literary and artistic circles. Dürer himself was surrounded and no doubt inspired by the Nuremberg humanists, above all by his friend Willibald Pirckheimer. Treatises such as Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ (1513) and Castiglione’s ‘The Courtier’ (1528) give testimony of this culture and the moral debates of the time.
The melancholic temperament was associated with intellectual creativity and as such this depiction has been understood to be an allegorical self-portrait. Indeed, it has been suggested that the ‘I’ of the title Melencolia I refers to Cornelius Agrippa’s hierarchy of the Melancholic temperament, with ‘imagination’ ranking above ‘mind’ and ‘reason’. The winged figure can thus be taken to be an allegory of artistic melancholy and the tools of measurement in the image refer to the artist’s examination of the natural world.
One of the other competing theories identifies the central figure as Lucifer, the best and brightest of the angels, contemplating his rebellion. Having been expelled from Heaven and condemned to the material world, represented by the instruments pertinent to the material world which surround him, he sits considering his fate. His act of defiance marks the beginning of sadness for mankind. According to this interpretation, the star and the rainbow on the horizon signify hope for mankind.
“[Dürer] executed some copper-plates that astonished the world. He set himself to make an engraving…of a figure of Melancholy, with all the instruments that reduce all who use them…to a melancholy humour; and in this he succeeded so well, that it would not be possible to do more delicate engraving with the burin.”
Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, 1550, translated by Gaston de Vere, The Medici Society, London 1912-14, volume VI, p. 95.