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ALBRECHT DÜRER
Melencolia I
.
Engraving, 1514. 243x188 mm; 9
1
/
2
x7
3
/
8
inches. A superb, dark, evenly
and well-inked Meder II b-c impression, before the scratch on the sphere
lower left and with the number “9” corrected in the third row of the
number square upper right, with one very delicate horizontal scratch on
the upper portion of the left thigh, with strong contrasts and little to no
sign of wear.Trimmed on the plate mark with narrow margins outside
the border line.
Dürer’s
Melencolia I
,
St. Jerome in his Study
and
Knight, Death and the Devil
,
all from 1514 and related in size, style and technical complexity, have
been considered his master engravings (or “
meisterstiche
”) since their
creation nearly 500 years ago. Replete with symbols (some understood
and some unknown) and brimming with psychological content,
Melencolia I
is perhaps the most heavily studied and written about image
in the history of art next to Leonardo daVinci’s
Mona Lisa
.
Melencolia I
has been described as representing the contemplative life,
and more specifically the melancholic pitfalls of an overly intellectual,
creative temperament, with the large seated figure in the engraving
possibly an allegory of the artist himself, symbolizing artistic melancholy.
Certainly an event that shaped Dürer’s life and his outlook during this
period was the illness and ultimate death of his mother on May 16,
1514.Whatever part this played in his creation of
Melencolia I
, it is clear
from his diary entries and a moving charcoal portrait of his mother from
1514 (now in the Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen, Berlin), in
which he detailed her illness, that her death weighed heavily on his
mind leading up to and during the creation of this engraving.
While modern scholars often group Dürer’s three master engravings
from 1514 together, suggesting they were conceived as a set by the artist
and commercially offered as such, this was evidently not the artist’s
intent (though the Roman numeral “I” in the title of the current work
also suggests Dürer had a series in mind). He often sold impressions of
Melencolia I
and
St. Jerome in his Study
together, though this is likely due
to their highly recognized importance even during his life and their
contemporaneous creation. Bartsch 74; Meder 75.
[70,000/100,000]