PROBABLY GERMAN, APPARENTLY UNMARKED, LATE 15TH/EARLY 16TH CENTURY

As stated in the exhibition catalogue Opus Sacrum, the saints engraved on the foot of the present lot are most likely based on disseminated religious engravings (J. Grabski, ed. Opus Sacrum, Warsaw, 1990, p. 294). For example, the engraved scene of Christ, the Virgin Mary and Saint Anne clearly resembles the engraving illustrated of the same subject. The gestures of the Christ child and the adoring downcast gazes of Saint Anne and the Virgin Mary closely relate to each other. This engraving is by the 15th century German engraver and goldsmith Israhel van Meckenem (German, Meckenem ca. 1440/45–1503 Bocholt). Surviving engravings by van Meckenem are rare, and those that did survive probably did because they were used in workshops of craftsmen and goldmsiths who ‘looked to prints for ideas for figural poses, pictorial compositions and decorative motifs to include in their own works’ (J. Byck, Circles of Influence: A Recently Acquired Print, Online feature, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 11 February 2014).