324 - Albrecht Dürer (1471 - Nuremberg - 1528), Philipp Melanchthon.

Albrecht Dürer (1471 - Nuremberg - 1528), Philipp Melanchthon. Engraving on laid paper, watermark Small Jug (Meder 158). (1526). 17.4 x 12.8 cm (sheet). Bartsch 105; Meder 104 a (of f); Schoch/Mende/Scherbaum 101 a (of f). Provenance: With P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London (with their stock number C. 31532 in pencil verso). A superb, warmly printed Meder a impression, with narrow margins. Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560) was one of the foremost humanist scholars of his age. Having studied at the universities of Heidelberg and Tübingen, he was appointed Professor of Greek at the University of Wittenberg at the age of 21. There he became a close friend and intellectual ally of Martin Luther, whose Reformation he supported throughout his life. Dürer portrays Melanchthon as a simply dressed, ascetic scholar, with a high forehead and tousled hair suggestive of his intellectual intensity. A window is reflected in the sitter’s eye, a device Dürer employed in several of his engraved portraits and which has been interpreted as an allusion to the eye as the mirror of the soul. – The paper evenly and slightly time-stained, with a few tiny foxmarks, mainly visible verso. The tip of the upper left corner made up. Verso with traces of a former mounting along the edges. Otherwise in good condition. Taxation: regelbesteuert (VAT: Regular Taxation).