A Poet Reading

1430s

Master of the Playing Cards

Artist, German, active c. 1430/1455

Printed with fine black lines on cream-white paper, a man wearing a knee-length tunic and reading from a piece of unfolded paper faces our right against a mostly blank background in this vertical engraving. The man's right shoulder, closer to us, is angled in a way that suggests his torso is turned slightly away from us even though his feet and face are shown in profile. A narrow wreath is almost lost in his dense curls, and he has a straight nose and prominent chin. His fur-lined tunic is belted low across his hips, and a dagger hangs from his belt. His pointed clog-like shoes seem to slip onto his feet like sandals, and he stands on a grassy field in an otherwise empty space. Creases in the paper he holds suggests it had been folded into nine sections.

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    engraving on laid paper

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Ladislaus and Beatrix von Hoffmann

  • Dimensions

    sheet: 13.3 x 9 cm (5 1/4 x 3 9/16 in.)
    overall (external frame dimensions): 39.4 x 31.8 cm (15 1/2 x 12 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1999.26.1

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Lehrs, no. 47

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Grafen Maltzan, Militsch in Schlesien; (N.G. Stogdon, England, 1998); Ladislaus von Hoffmann, Washington, D.C., 1998; gift to NGA 1999.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1956

  • Prints, 1400 - 1800, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1956 - 1957, no. 8 (as Playing Card: Valet), repro.

2000

  • Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2000-2001.

2005

  • Origins of European Printmaking: Fifteenth-Century Woodcuts and Their Public, NGA and Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, 2005-2006, no. 8, repro.

2016

  • The World in Play: Luxury Cards, 1430-1540, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016, fig. 42.

Bibliography

1893

  • Lehrs, Max. "Der deutsche und niederländische Kupferstich der 15 Jarhh. in den kleineren Sammlungen. XXVII. Militsch." Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 16 (1893): 79.

1908

  • Lehrs, Max. Geschichte und kritischer Katalog des deutschen, niederlandischen und franzosischen Kupferstichs im XV. Jahrhundert. 9 vols. and 1 plate vol. Vienna: Gesellschaft fur vervielfaltigende Kunst, 1908-1934: 101 and 140.

1998

  • Stogdon, Nicholas. Early Northern Engravings, Catalogue XI. England, 1998: no.1

2016

  • National Gallery of Art. Highlights from the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Washington, 2016: 44, repro.

Watermarks

none

Wikidata ID

Q75421929

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