Erasmus of Rotterdam

1526

Albrecht Dürer

Artist, German, 1471 - 1528

Created with fine black lines printed on cream-white paper, this vertical engraving shows a man facing our left, wearing a cap and voluminous robe as he writes on a sheet of paper. Closest to us and along the bottom edge of the composition, a table or shelf is spread with several books, some upright, some on their sides, and one thick tome laid open. The open book has writing on the pages, but the words are not legible. Beyond the books, the man is shown from the waist up with his body angled to our left. A few curls peek out from the soft, rounded cap that covers his head down to his neck and his forehead, and nearly reaches the top edge of the paper. His face and jowls are deeply lined, and he has deep-set eyes, a long, sloped nose, and his lips are closed. His robe rides high on his shoulders and around his neck, parting at the throat to show a high-collared garment beneath. He gazes down at his hands, which rest on the paper on which he writes. One thick-fingered hand holds the inkwell and the other the pen. The paper and a book underneath it rest on a lectern that angles up toward the writer. The lectern sits on a desk that also holds a short urn with a small bunch of leaves and flowers at the front corner closest to us. Two packets or pieces of folded paper sit next to the lectern. Densely spaced, fine lines create dark shadows in the deep folds of the man’s garments and on the wall behind him. A panel on the wall behind the man reads, in Latin, “IMAGO ERASMI ROTERODA MI AB ALBERTO DVRERO AD VIVAM EFFIGIEM DELINIATA,” which is followed by a Greek inscription, and then, “MDXXXVI.” The artist signed the work with his monogram, consisting of an upper case D straddled by the legs of a wide, upper case A at the bottom center of the panel.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    engraving on laid paper

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Dimensions

    plate: 24.9 × 19.1 cm (9 13/16 × 7 1/2 in.)
    sheet: 25.8 × 19.5 cm (10 3/16 × 7 11/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1943.3.3554

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Meder, no. 105

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(sale, Hollstein & Puppel, Berlin, April 1930, no.354); (Charles Sessler, Philadelphia); purchased by Lessing J. Rosenwald [1891-1979], Jenkintown, PA, 1930; gift to NGA, 1943.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1931

  • Five Centuries of Print Making, The Print Club of Philadelphia, 1931, no.18, repro.

1932

  • Prints from the Collection of Lessing J. Rosenwald, Lakeside Press Galleries, Chicago, IL, 1932, no. 46, repro.

1945

  • Prints from the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, John Herron Art Institute, Indianapolis, IN, 1945, no. 24.

1946

  • Cayuga Museum of Art and History, Auburn, NY, 1946.

1953

  • Nuremberg and the German World, 1460-1530: prints and books from the Kress and Rosenwald Collections, NGA, 1953.

  • Masterpieces of Graphic Art from the Rosenwald Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1953-1954, no catalogue.

1954

  • Masterpieces from the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1954, no catalogue.

1955

  • Miniatures and Prints from the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, NGA, 1955.

1956

  • Masterpieces of Graphic Art from the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, NGA, 1956.

  • Life and Lives in the Renaissance, Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC (not lent to Norton Gallery venue), 1956, no. 35, repro.

1959

  • Prints from the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, University of Nebraska Art Galleries, Lincoln, 1959, no catalogue.

1960

  • Dürer, Rembrandt, Goya: Exhibition of Fine Prints, Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, CA, 1960-1961, no. 13.

1965

  • Master Prints from the Rosenwald Collection, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; and Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1965, no. 29.

1969

  • Symbols in Transformation: Iconographic Themes at the Time of the Reformation, Princeton University Art Museum, 1969, no. 25, repro.

1970

  • Albrecht Dürer, 1471-1528: A Study Exhibition of Print Connoisseurship, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1970, no. 28A.

1971

  • Dürer in America: His Graphic Work, NGA, 1971, no. 79, repro.

1973

  • Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Prints of Northern Europe from the National Gallery of Art Rosenwald Collection, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 1973, no. 49.

1988

  • Graphic Survey Show, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., June 1988.

1997

  • Six Centuries/Six Artists, NGA, 1997.

2021

  • Holbein: Capturing Character in the Renaissance, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 2021-2022.

Bibliography

1932

  • Meder, Joseph. Dürer-Katalog; ein Handbuch über Albrecht Dürers Stiche, Radierungen, Holzschnitte, deren Zustände, Ausgaben und Wasserzeichen. Vienna: Verlag Gilhofer und Ranschburg, 1932. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1971.

1977

  • Strauss, Walter L. The Intaglio Prints of Albrecht Dürer: Engravings, Etchings & Drypoints; Expanded edition. New York: Kennedy Galleries and Abaris Books, 1977, 290-292, no. 105.

2001

  • Schoch, Rainer, Mattihas Mende, and Anna Scherbaum. Albrecht Dürer: Das druckgraphische Werk. Munich, 2001: vol. 1: no. 102.

Inscriptions

in plate, on tablet at upper left: IMAGO. ERASMI. ROTERODA=/ MI. AB. ALBERTO. DVERERO. AD / VIVAM. EFFIGIEM. DELINIATA / THN. KPEITTΩ. TA. ΣYΓΓPAM / MATA. ΔEIΞEI / MDXXVI. / [artist's AD monogram]; verso, at bottom, in graphite, by a later hand: B.107 D.104 / gekrönter Lilienwappen H.[?] / KK908

Watermarks

crowned shield with Fleur-de-lys and letters L and b (Meder 314)

Wikidata ID

Q18338491

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