Albrecht Dürer

St. Eustace. Copper engraving on fine laid paper with watermark "Hohe Krone" (Meder watermark 20). (Circa 1501). 35.3 x 26 cm (sheet size). Brilliant, contrast-rich and deep black early impression with fine ridge under the bridge and in the area of the standing dogs. A print before the horizontals above the leftmost mountain contours, but with the short scratches in the saint's right arm and shoulder. At the lower and upper edge with a fine margin about 2-3 mm wide around the border line, at the right and left edge trimmed just within it. The large-format copper engraving is one of Dürer's main prints and is rare in good impressions. According to legend, Eustachius was a Roman officer in the army of Emperor Trajan. While hunting, he was converted to Christianity by an encounter with a stag bearing the crucifix in its antlers, and later suffered martyrdom. As the patron saint of hunting and one of the fourteen emergency helpers, he was very popular in the late 15th century. This engraving shows Dürer's mastery of rendering natural forms in their various textures at a peak. Every detail, whether in the close-up view or the distant landscape vista, is treated with equal meticulousness. Special attention is given to the hunter's horse and five greyhounds, all but one of which are drawn in pure side view, without overlap, and evenly distributed over the surface with a certain horror vacui. "With his "naturalism" the artist adopts, as it were, the saint's genuflection before the creature (...) the veneration of Christ goes hand in hand with the glorification of creation" (cf. R. Schoch p. 94). Dürer especially appreciated this sheet. Thus, as can be seen from his diary, on the Dutch journey in the 1520s he still carried prints of Eustachius to give away or sell, which he had already engraved about two decades earlier. - One horizontal and vertical fold trace with smaller paper injuries, these professionally closed. The upper and lower left corner set. Minor paper flaws at the edges, otherwise well preserved. Rarely so fine! Bartsch 57; Meder 60 a-b (of k); Schoch/Mende/Scherbaum 32 a-b (of k). Taxation: differential taxed plus 7% (VAT: Margin Scheme (non EU)).